Rascal, one defended in part by curate? (1,3,3)
I believe the answer is:
a bad egg
'curate?' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot judge whether it can be defined by this definition.
'rascal one defended in part' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'one' could be 'a' (a thing is one thing) and 'a' is found in the answer.
'part' could be 'egg' (egg is a kind of part) and 'egg' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'bad' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'by' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for a bad egg that I've seen before include "Someone inherently dishonest" , "A worthless person (colloq.)" , "Unpleasant guy" , "One undesirable customer" , "one's worthless" .)