Lake island has bridge across, Patient A maintaining (7,3)
I believe the answer is:
caspian sea
'lake' is the definition.
(Caspian Sea is an example)
'island has bridge across patient a maintaining' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'island' could be 'i' and 'i' is located in the answer.
'bridge' could be 'span' (synonyms) and 'span' is located in the remaining letters.
'patient' could be 'case' (synonyms) and 'case' is found in the remaining letters.
'a' is found in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for caspian sea that I've seen before include "Lake bordered by both Russia and Iran" , "World's largest inland body of water, fed by the Volga River" , "large expanse of water" , "There's lots of water here" , "World's largest lake" .)