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Lightly touch base down here for the night (10)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

featherbed

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'down here for the night' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I can't understand how they can define each other.

'lightly touch base' is the wordplay.
'lightly touch' becomes 'feather' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'base' becomes 'bed' (bed is a kind of base).
'feather'+'bed'='FEATHERBED'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for featherbed that I've seen before include "Take great care to protect" , "Subsidise" , "Pamper" , "mattress" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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