Mary Rose at the front holding ton in stone? (6)
I believe the answer is:
martyr
'stone?' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with contact as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'mary rose at the front holding ton' is the wordplay.
'at the front' suggests taking the first letters.
'holding' indicates putting letters inside.
'ton' becomes 't' (abbreviation).
The initial letter of 'rose' is 'r'.
'mary'+'r'='maryr'
'maryr' enclosing 't' is 'MARTYR'.
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for martyr that I've seen before include "One dying for religious beliefs" , "One who dies for a cause" , "One exaggerating suffering" , "One suffers for the sake of principle" , "Victim; eg St Stephen" .)