He was touchy about precious metal (5)
I believe the answer is:
midas
'precious metal' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'he was touchy about' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'about' could be 'a' (abbreviation in Chambers) and 'a' is found within the answer.
The remaining letters 'mids' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for midas that I've seen before include "Everything he touched turned to gold" , "Mythical king who had the power to turn everything to gold" , "old king" , "His touch made gold" , "King of Phrygia who had a golden touch" .)