Golden award retired artist accepts (5)
I believe the answer is:
amber
'golden' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Perhaps you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'award retired artist accepts' is the wordplay.
'award' becomes 'MBE' (Member of the British Empire).
'retired' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'artist' becomes 'RA' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts).
'accepts' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'ra' back-to-front is 'ar'.
'mbe' placed within 'ar' is 'AMBER'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for amber that I've seen before include "Traffic light colour" , "Traffic-light colour" , "Yellowish translucent fossil resin" , ""Stop" traffic light" , "Yellow-orange" .)