Process essential to commence expansion (5)

I believe the answer is:

means

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'process' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'essential to commence expansion' is the wordplay.
'essential to' means to look at the middle letters.
'expansion' becomes 'ans' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
The central letters of 'commence' are 'me'.
'me'+'ans'='MEANS'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for means that I've seen before include "Funding" , "Imports" , "Intends; income" , "Medium used to achieve a result" , "Resources; intends" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.

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