Refusing to ignore last month's ruling? (6)
I believe the answer is:
lining
'ruling?' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both acts as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'refusing to ignore last month's' is the wordplay.
'refusing' becomes 'declining' ('decline' can be a synonym of 'refuse').
'to ignore' is a deletion indicator.
'last month' becomes 'dec' (short for December, last month of the year).
'declining' with 'dec' taken out is 'LINING'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lining that I've seen before include "See 21" , "Heather is wearing fashionable" , "Inner covering" , "Jerome Kern song: 'Look for the silver . . . . . . '" , "Material laid inside another" .)