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Hour saved by spinner entering a shaft, spider perhaps (9)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

arthropod

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'spider perhaps' is the definition.
(I know that spider is a type of arthropod)

'hour saved by spinner entering a shaft' is the wordplay.
'hour' becomes 'hr' (abbreviation).
'saved by' indicates putting letters inside (I've seen this in other clues).
'spinner' becomes 'top' (a spinning top).
'entering' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'a shaft' becomes 'arod' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'hr' inserted into 'top' is 'throp'.
'throp' put within 'arod' is 'ARTHROPOD'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for arthropod that I've seen before include "worker, perhaps" , "Creature such as insect or crustacean" , "Invertebrate" , "spider, for example" , "One has external skeleton" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.
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