Give battle now, besieging (5)
I believe the answer is:
award
'give' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'battle now besieging' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'battle' could be 'war' (I've seen this before) and 'war' is found within the answer.
'now' could be 'ad' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'ad' is present in the leftover letters.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for award that I've seen before include "Decoration" , "Prize in recognition of achievement" , "Prize -- gift" , "Give, as an honour" , "medal, say" .)