Influence of female in the abbey (6)
I believe the answer is:
factor
'influence' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'female in the abbey' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'female' could be 'f' (abbreviation) and 'f' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'actor' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'of' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for factor that I've seen before include "for a consideration?" , "Cause" , "Aspect" , "Contributing influence; business agent" , "Integer that can be exactly divided into another" .)