Madly robber skimmed empty lorry (7)
I believe the answer is:
irately
'madly' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adverbs. Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'robber skimmed empty lorry' is the wordplay.
'robber' becomes 'pirate' (sea-faring robber).
'skimmed' means to remove the first letter (to skim something is to take the top off it).
'empty' suggests removing the centre.
'lorry' with its centre taken out is 'ly'.
'pirate' with its initial letter taken off is 'irate'.
'irate'+'ly'='IRATELY'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for irately that I've seen before include "With great anger" , "Angrily" , "Cross style" .)