Leader of Italy? Legendary King’s backing one Mediterranean resident (7)
I believe the answer is:
israeli
'mediterranean resident' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'leader of italy? legendary king's backing one' is the wordplay.
'leader of' says to take the initial letters.
'legendary king's' becomes 'lear's' (legendary King of Britain).
'backing' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'one' becomes 'i' (Roman numeral).
The first letter of 'italy' is 'i'.
'lears' back-to-front is 'srael'.
'i'+'srael'+'i'='ISRAELI'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for israeli that I've seen before include "A Middle-Easterner" , "One from Tel Aviv, perhaps" , "See member of modern state" , "Levantine" , "Faithful inhabitant" .)