Motion was altered drastically to cover gold (9)
I believe the answer is:
laureated
'motion was' is the definition.
(ref to Poet Laureate Andrew Motion)
'altered drastically to cover gold' is the wordplay.
'drastically' is an anagram indicator.
'to cover' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'gold' becomes 'au' (Au is the chemical symbol for gold).
'altered' with letters rearranged gives 'lreated'.
'lreated' enclosing 'au' is 'LAUREATED'.
I've seen this clue in The Guardian.
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