Keep company with characters in freestyle backstroke (3)
I believe the answer is:
see
'keep company' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with motion as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'with characters in freestyle backstroke' is the wordplay.
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'characters in' says to take the centre.
'backstroke' becomes 'ee' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
The middle of 'freestyle' is 's'.
's' put next to 'ee' is 'SEE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for see that I've seen before include "Glimpse; get" , "Watch, equal (a bet)" , "Understand; view" , "Get < court < witness" , "Observe the bishop's jurisdiction" .)