Puts on iron weight essentially to back tin (6)
I believe the answer is:
feigns
'puts' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with communicating as well as being verbs in their -s form.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'iron weight essentially to back tin' is the wordplay.
'iron' becomes 'Fe' (Fe is the chemical symbol for iron).
'essentially' says to take the centre.
'to back' says the letters should be written backwards.
'tin' becomes 'Sn' (Sn is the chemical symbol for tin).
The central letters of 'weight' are 'ig'.
'sn' reversed gives 'ns'.
'fe'+'ig'+'ns'='FEIGNS'
'on' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for feigns that I've seen before include "Makes a pretence of" , "Pretends, creates false appearance" , "Pretends to be affected by" , "Pretends, simulates" , "Pretends or fabricates" .)