Judge beginning to swear, surrounded by fools (6)
I believe the answer is:
assess
'judge' is the definition.
(to assess is to judge or rate)
'beginning to swear surrounded by fools' is the wordplay.
'beginning to' says to take the initial letters.
'surrounded by' is an insertion indicator.
'fools' becomes 'asses' (ass can mean a foolish person).
The first letter of 'swear' is 's'.
's' placed into 'asses' is 'ASSESS'.
(Other definitions for assess that I've seen before include "Estimate the worth or quality of" , "Gauge, evaluate" , "'Evaluate, appraise (6)'" , "Estimate, decide the value of" , "Evaluate (quality)" .)