Poles wearing uniform knocked off, lacking tools (9)
I believe the answer is:
unskilled
'poles wearing uniform knocked off lacking tools' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'poles wearing uniform knocked off' is the wordplay.
'poles' becomes 'NS' (north and south poles).
'wearing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'uniform' becomes 'U' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'knocked off' becomes 'killed' (to knock off can mean to assassinate).
'u'+'killed'='ukilled'
'ns' inserted inside 'ukilled' is 'UNSKILLED'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for unskilled that I've seen before include "Lacking professional expertise" , "Incompetent" , "Clumsy" , "Requiring no special training" , "Inexperienced" .)