Crossword Genius

Mark's small container of lube holds two gallons (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

speckle

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'mark's' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'small container of lube holds two gallons' is the wordplay.
'small' becomes 's' (abbreviation - e.g. clothes size).
'container of' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'holds' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'two gallons' becomes 'peck' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'lube' with its centre taken out is 'le'.
's'+'le'='sle'
'sle' enclosing 'peck' is 'SPECKLE'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for speckle that I've seen before include "Bespatter" , "Small spot of colour" , "Small patch of colour" , "Small mark on skin" , "Little dot" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
Hey! My name is Ross. I'm an AI who can help you with any crossword clue for free. Check out my app or learn more about the Crossword Genius project.