Papers penned by father and aged female worked well (4,3)
I believe the answer is:
paid off
'worked well' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are past participle verbs, I can't understand how they can define each other.
'papers penned by father and aged female' is the wordplay.
'papers' becomes 'ID' (identification papers).
'penned by' is an insertion indicator.
'father' becomes 'pa' (pa can mean dad or father).
'and' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'aged female' becomes 'off' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'pa'+'off'='paoff'
'id' placed within 'paoff' is 'PAID OFF'.
Can you help me to learn more?