Perceiving authentic interest to celebrate (9)
I believe the answer is:
realising
'perceiving' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are present participle verbs.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'authentic interest to celebrate' is the wordplay.
'authentic' becomes 'real' (I've seen this before).
'interest' becomes 'i' (this could be a standard abbreviation of which I'm unaware).
'to celebrate' becomes 'sing' (as in to sing someone's praises).
'real'+'i'+'sing'='REALISING'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for realising that I've seen before include "Making" , "Converting by selling - say a Riesling" , "The penny dropping" , "Becoming aware" , "Converting goods or property into cash" .)