Girl hardly worth picking up? (5)
I believe the answer is:
penny
'up?' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'girl hardly worth picking' is the wordplay.
'girl' becomes 'pen'.
'hardly worth picking' becomes 'ny' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'pen'+'ny'='PENNY'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for penny that I've seen before include "p; small coin" , "One hundredth of a pound" , "Coin spent by the desperate?" , "The price of a thought" , "Lancaster" .)