Crossword Genius

Gushing brook almost capsized four friends in the middle (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

effusive

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

'gushing' is the definition.
(I know that gushing can be written as effusive)

'brook almost capsized four friends in the middle' is the wordplay.
'brook' becomes 'suffer' (brook can mean to suffer or tolerate).
'almost' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'capsized' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'four' becomes 'IV' (Roman numerals).
'friends in the middle' becomes 'e' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'suffer' with its last letter taken away is 'suffe'.
'suffe' backwards is 'effus'.
'effus'+'iv'+'e'='EFFUSIVE'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for effusive that I've seen before include "Pouring out words" , "Gushingly emotional" , "Expressing emotions in unrestrained way, gushy" , "lyrical" , "(Of person) gushing" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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