Irritate disheartened actors, skewering received pronunciation (4)
I believe the answer is:
rasp
'irritate' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'disheartened actors skewering received pronunciation' is the wordplay.
'disheartened' suggests removing the centre (the middle or heart is removed).
'skewering' indicates putting letters inside (inserted letters skewer into others).
'received pronunciation' becomes 'rp' (this might be a standard abbreviation which I don't know about).
'actors' with its middle removed is 'as'.
'as' going inside 'rp' is 'RASP'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for rasp that I've seen before include "Harsh noise - file" , "Abrade" , "sort of berry?" , "Smoother" , "Harsh grating sound" .)