King heading off sycophants - Queen's helpers, say (7)
I believe the answer is:
roadies
'queen's helpers say' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.
'king heading off sycophants' is the wordplay.
'king' becomes 'R' (abbreviation for rex, king in Latin).
'heading off' means to remove the first letter.
'sycophants' becomes 'toadies' ('toady' can be a synonym of 'sycophant').
'toadies' with its initial letter removed is 'oadies'.
'r'+'oadies'='ROADIES'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for roadies that I've seen before include "Pop group's tour assistants" , "They handle the equipment for entertainers" , "Band tour crew" , "Transport managers" .)