He's lordly, with an upright figure and a covering of fat (5)
I believe the answer is:
laird
'he's lordly' is the definition.
The answer is a person as well as being a singular noun. This is suggested by the definition.
'with an upright figure and a covering of fat' is the wordplay.
'with' is an insertion indicator.
'an upright figure' becomes 'ir' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'and' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'covering of' means to remove the middle letters (only the letters which cover the word).
'fat' becomes 'lard' (lard is a kind of fat).
'lard' with its centre taken out is 'ld'.
'ir' put after 'a' is 'air'.
'air' inserted inside 'ld' is 'LAIRD'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for laird that I've seen before include "Scots landowner" , "Scottish estate-owner" , "Scottish owner of large estate" , "Man owning land" , "One's landed in Scotland" .)