Gallant vicar with child briefly out of hand (9)
I believe the answer is:
chivalric
'gallant' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'vicar with child briefly out of hand' is the wordplay.
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'briefly' means to remove the last letter.
'out of hand' indicates an anagram.
'child' with its final letter taken off is 'chil'.
'vicar' after 'chil' is 'chilvicar'.
'chilvicar' is an anagram of 'CHIVALRIC'.
(Another definition for chivalric that I've seen is " bold".)
I've seen this clue in The Times.
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