Polite fellow has arrived ahead of schedule, I hear (8)
I believe the answer is:
mannerly
'polite' is the definition.
(similar in meaning)
'fellow has arrived ahead of schedule i hear' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'fellow' could be 'man' (fellow can mean a man) and 'man' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for mannerly that I've seen before include "Well-behaved" , "Polite, socially correct" .)