Fruiterer says dried fruit is side by side (10)
I believe the answer is:
concurrent
'side by side' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'fruiterer says dried fruit' is the wordplay.
'fruiterer' becomes 'con' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'says' shows a homophone (sound like).
'dried fruit' becomes 'currant' (currant is a kind of dried fruit).
'currant' sounds like 'current'.
'con'+'current'='CONCURRENT'
'is' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for concurrent that I've seen before include "Cooperating with" , "acting together" , "Working together" .)