Make contact with skin, scraping the top: the reaction? (4)
I believe the answer is:
ouch
'top the reaction?' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'make contact with skin scraping' is the wordplay.
'make contact with' becomes 'ou' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'skin' suggests removing the centre.
'scraping' becomes 'coming up with' ('come up with' can be a synonym of 'scrape').
'comingupwith' with its middle removed is 'ch'.
'ou'+'ch'='OUCH'
'the' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ouch that I've seen before include "Pained sound" , "Pained exclamation" , "Ruby, perhaps once in it" , "that's painful" , "that hurts!" .)