Frustrated king before donning hairnet (9)
I believe the answer is:
snookered
'frustrated' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with social activities as well as being past participle verbs.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'king before donning hairnet' is the wordplay.
'king' becomes 'K' (chess abbreviation).
'before' becomes 'ere' (poetic term for 'before').
'donning' indicates putting letters inside (I've seen this in other clues).
'hairnet' becomes 'snood' (I've seen this in another clue).
'k'+'ere'='kere'
'kere' put inside 'snood' is 'SNOOKERED'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for snookered that I've seen before include "blocked" , "Put in difficult position" , "Thwarted" .)