Crossword Genius

Learned secret about husband wearing coral pants (9)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

scholarly

'learned' is the definition.
(similar in meaning)

'secret about husband wearing coral pants' is the wordplay.
'secret' becomes 'sly' (I've seen this in other clues).
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'husband' becomes 'h' (abbreviation).
'wearing' indicates putting letters inside.
'pants' indicates an anagram (UK informal term for 'nonsense' or 'rubbish').
'coral' with letters rearranged gives 'colar'.
'h' going inside 'colar' is 'cholar'.
'sly' going around 'cholar' is 'SCHOLARLY'.

(Other definitions for scholarly that I've seen before include "Learned, academic" , "Involving serious academic study" , "in academic style?" , "Erudite" .)

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