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Half-heartedly chattered about strip of clothing (5)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

debag

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'half-heartedly chattered about strip of clothing' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.

'chattered about strip of clothing' is the wordplay.
'chattered about' becomes 'deb' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'strip of' means to look at the middle letters (I've seen 'stripped' mean this (outside letters removed)).
'clothing' becomes 'rags' (I have seen 'Tattered clothing ' mean 'rags' so perhaps 'clothing' could also mean 'rags').
The central letters of 'rags' are 'ag'.
'deb'+'ag'='DEBAG'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for debag that I've seen before include "Deprive of trousers" , "Strip of cords maybe" , "As a prank remove pants" , "take trousers off" , "Remove (a person's) trousers" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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