Quietly polishes the means of communication (6)
I believe the answer is:
phones
'means of communication' 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 can't see?
'quietly polishes' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'quietly' could be 'p' (p for piano and quiet) and 'p' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'hones' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'the' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for phones that I've seen is " 'Calls, rings (6)'".)