Hard old boy in photo unreasonably scared (6)
I believe the answer is:
phobic
'unreasonably scared' is the definition.
The answer and definition are not the same part of speech. However, past participle verbs and adjectives sometimes mean the same thing.
'hard old boy in photo' is the wordplay.
'hard' becomes 'h' (abbreviation used in pencil classifications).
'old boy' becomes 'OB' (abbreviation for a private school 'old boy').
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'photo' becomes 'pic' (short for picture).
'h'+'ob'='hob'
'hob' placed inside 'pic' is 'PHOBIC'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for phobic that I've seen before include "Suffering irrational fears" , "suffering morbid fear" , "With an irrational fear" .)