Persecuted hill folk shake out hay (9)
I believe the answer is:
tormented
'persecuted' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'hill folk shake out hay' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'hill' could be 'tor' (tor is a kind of hill) and 'tor' is present in the answer.
'folk' could be 'men' (both can mean people) and 'men' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'ted' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tormented that I've seen before include "Distressed" , "Made to suffer" , "Harassed" , "Caused to suffer" , "Worried" .)