Potter's wife and daughter in valley (6)
I believe the answer is:
dawdle
'potter's' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are verbs in their base form, I cannot see how they can define each other.
'wife and daughter in valley' is the wordplay.
'wife' becomes 'w'.
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'daughter' becomes 'd' (genealogical abbreviation).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'valley' becomes 'dale' (dale is a kind of valley).
'w'+'d'='wd'
'wd' placed inside 'dale' is 'DAWDLE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dawdle that I've seen before include "Waste time; move slowly" , "Potter along" , "Dilly-dally" , "Take your time, walk slowly" , "Move slowly and lazily" .)