Knight stops magician creating beastly inflammation (5)
I believe the answer is:
mange
'beastly inflammation' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both states of affairs as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'knight stops magician' is the wordplay.
'knight' becomes 'N' (chess abbreviation).
'stops' is an insertion indicator (stopping can mean blocking a gap).
'magician' becomes 'mage'.
'n' placed into 'mage' is 'MANGE'.
'creating' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for mange that I've seen before include "Disease affecting dog hair" , "Animal's skin disease causing loss of hair" , "disease results" , "Skin disease of cats and dogs" , "Skin disease of mammals" .)