Push prow of gondola into river (4)
I believe the answer is:
urge
'push' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'prow of gondola into river' is the wordplay.
'prow of' suggests taking the first letters.
'into' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'river' becomes 'ure' (I have seen 'River of Wensleydale ' mean 'ure' so perhaps 'river' could also mean 'ure'**).
The first letter of 'gondola' is 'g'.
'g' put into 'ure' is 'URGE'.
(Other definitions for urge that I've seen before include "Press; drive" , "Advise earnestly, encourage to go on" , "Induce; yearning" , "Persuade - proclivity" , "Strongly encourage" .)