Crossword Genius

Greets the silly ass carrying the instrument (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

salutes

'greets' is the definition.
(saluting is a kind of greeting)

'silly ass carrying the instrument' is the wordplay.
'silly' indicates an anagram.
'carrying' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'the instrument' becomes 'lute' (lute is a kind of instrument).
'ass' with letters rearranged gives 'sas'.
'sas' going around 'lute' is 'SALUTES'.

'the' is the link.

(Other definitions for salutes that I've seen before include "Greets" , "Military greetings" , "Brief inspection" .)

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.
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