Mad somersaults aboard his flying carpet (8)
I believe the answer is:
admonish
'carpet' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are verbs in their base form, I cannot understand how they can define each other.
'mad somersaults aboard his flying' is the wordplay.
'mad somersaults' becomes 'adm' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'aboard' becomes 'on'.
'flying' is an anagram indicator.
'his' is an anagram of 'ish'.
'adm'+'on'+'ish'='ADMONISH'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for admonish that I've seen before include "Warn sternly" , "criticise" , "Caution - reprimand" , "Mildly reprove" , "Reprove, warn" .)