My European ship came in, filthy (5)
I believe the answer is:
messy
'filthy' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'my european ship came in' is the wordplay.
'european' becomes 'E' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'ship' becomes 'SS' (prefix in ship names eg SS Great Britain).
'came in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'e'+'ss'='ess'
'my' placed around 'ess' is 'MESSY'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for messy that I've seen before include "Disorganised" , "Untidy, dirty" , "Dirty and disorderly" .)