Crossword Genius

Popular father retaining power to encourage (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

inspire

'encourage' is the definition.
(inspiring is a kind of encouraging)

'popular father retaining power' is the wordplay.
'popular' becomes 'in'.
'father' becomes 'sire' ('sire' can be a synonym of 'father').
'retaining' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'power' becomes 'p'.
'sire' going around 'p' is 'spire'.
'in'+'spire'='INSPIRE'

'to' is the link.

(Other definitions for inspire that I've seen before include "Breathe - fire" , "Excite" , "Animate (with feeling)" , "Motivate" , "Give (feeling of) creativity to" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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