Prod by female failed to deliver clear message (8)

I believe the answer is:

misspoke

'failed to deliver clear message' is the definition.
(misspeak can mean to speak unclearly)

'prod by female' is the wordplay.
'prod' becomes 'poke' (synonyms).
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'female' becomes 'miss' (miss refers to a young woman).
'poke' after 'miss' is 'MISSPOKE'.

(Another definition for misspoke that I've seen is " as Hillary wrongly said once".)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.

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