Crossword Genius

National firm once caught importing large antelope (9)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

icelandic

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'national' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?

'firm once caught importing large antelope' is the wordplay.
'firm once' becomes 'ici' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'caught' becomes 'c' (cricket abbreviation).
'importing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'large antelope' becomes 'eland' (large African antelope).
'ici'+'c'='icic'
'icic' placed around 'eland' is 'ICELANDIC'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for icelandic that I've seen before include "Like many sagas" , "in island republic" , "Eg, native to Reykjavik" , "Language of people of Reykjavik" , "As European" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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