Crossword Genius

King and queen stifle sign of hesitation about hollowed out fruit (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

kumquat

'hollowed out fruit' is the definition.
'kumquat' can be an answer for 'fruit' (kumquat is a kind of fruit). I am not sure about the 'hollowed out' bit.

'king and queen stifle sign of hesitation' is the wordplay.
'king' becomes 'K' (abbreviation for king in chess).
'and' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'queen' becomes 'quat' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'stifle' indicates putting letters inside.
'sign of hesitation' becomes 'um' (expression of hesitation).
'k'+'quat'='kquat'
'kquat' going around 'um' is 'KUMQUAT'.

'about' is the link.

(Other definitions for kumquat that I've seen before include "Asian citrus-like fruit" , "Chinese orange fruit" , "Small orange-like fruit" , "Small orange fruit" , "Small Chinese orange" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.
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