Lay out a lot of drove pens all over the place (9)
I believe the answer is:
overspend
'lay out' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are verbs in their base form, I don't understand how one could define the other.
'a lot of drove pens all over the place' is the wordplay.
'a lot' means to remove the first letter (I've seen 'a lot of' mean this).
'of' becomes 'o''.
'all over the place' indicates anagramming the letters.
'o'+'drove'+'pens'='odrovepens'
'odrovepens' with its initial letter taken off is 'drovepens'.
'drovepens' anagrammed gives 'OVERSPEND'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for overspend that I've seen before include "Excessive outlay" , "To exceed one's budget" , "To run into debt" , "splurge" , "Buy too much" .)