Recalled fire nearly sank ship earlier, describing type? (4,5)
I believe the answer is:
sans serif
'type?' is the definition.
(I know that sans serif is a type of case)
'recalled fire nearly sank ship earlier' is the wordplay.
'recalled' is a reversal indicator (to recall can mean to bring something back).
'nearly' means to remove the last letter.
'ship' becomes 'SS' (prefix in ship names eg SS Great Britain).
'earlier' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'fire' back-to-front is 'erif'.
'sank' with its last letter taken away is 'san'.
'san'+'ss'='sanss'
'erif' after 'sanss' is 'SANS SERIF'.
'describing' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for sans serif that I've seen before include "Plain style of type" , "plain type of face" , "Plain typeface" , "Style of font" , "Style of typeface" .)