Left after exercise in bandage providing relief (8)
I believe the answer is:
spelling
'relief' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't understand how one could define the other.
'left after exercise in bandage providing' is the wordplay.
'left' becomes 'l' (common abbreviation).
'after' says to put letters next to each other.
'exercise' becomes 'pe' (Physical Education).
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'bandage providing' becomes 'sling' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'l' put after 'pe' is 'pel'.
'pel' placed within 'sling' is 'SPELLING'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for spelling that I've seen before include "Taking turn" , "Relieving" , "Process of character identification" , "Giving a word's letters" , "kind of bee?" .)