Partners carried by characteristic conveyance (7)
I believe the answer is:
transit
'conveyance' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'partners carried by characteristic' is the wordplay.
'partners' becomes 'ns'.
'carried by' indicates putting letters inside.
'characteristic' becomes 'trait' (I've seen this before).
'ns' inserted inside 'trait' is 'TRANSIT'.
(Other definitions for transit that I've seen before include "Act of passing across" , "Pass through; van" , "The carrying of people etc" , "Start in for the process of being conveyed" , "To pass through/across" .)