Inviting punishment by touching French bread with tips of oily fingers (2,4,2)
I believe the answer is:
on pain of
'inviting punishment' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.
'touching french bread with tips of oily fingers' is the wordplay.
'touching' becomes 'on'.
'french bread' becomes 'pain' (I've seen this before).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'tips of' says to take the initial letters (I've seen 'tip of' mean this).
The first letters of 'oily fingers' is 'of'.
'on'+'pain'+'of'='ON PAIN OF'
'by' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
I've seen this clue in The Times.
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