In France, I left heartless lady to search for free-swimming stinger (9)
I believe the answer is:
jellyfish
'free-swimming stinger' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both animals as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'in france i left heartless lady to search' is the wordplay.
'in france i' becomes 'je' ('I' in French).
'left' becomes 'l' (common abbreviation).
'heartless' means to remove the middle letters.
'to search' becomes 'fish' (fishing is a kind of searching).
'lady' with its centre removed is 'ly'.
'je'+'l'+'ly'+'fish'='JELLYFISH'
'for' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for jellyfish that I've seen before include "eg Medusa" , "Marine creature with stinging tentacles" , "Tentacled gelatinous creature" , "Sea animal with stinging tentacles" , "Sea creature with stinging tentacles" .)