Crossword Genius

Give an account of prices to the public (6)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

retail

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'give' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with ownership as well as being verbs in their base form.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?

'an account of prices to the public' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'an' could be 'i' (Roman numeral for one) and 'i' is present in the answer.
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'real' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for retail that I've seen before include "Flog" , "Direct sale to the consumer" , "Sell - tell" , "sort of sale" , "Sell - supply account" .)

I've seen this clue in The Globe and Mail.
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