Crossword Genius

Highly skilled teacher likely to be disheartened (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

masterly

'highly skilled' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'teacher likely to be disheartened' is the wordplay.
'teacher' becomes 'master' (I've seen this before**).
'to be disheartened' means to remove the middle letters.
'likely' with its middle taken out is 'ly'.
'master'+'ly'='MASTERLY'

(Other definitions for masterly that I've seen before include "Virtuoso, consummate" , "World-class" , "Supremely skilled" , "Highly skilled" , "Showing exceptional skill" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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