Roadwork at around beginning of winter, about to get top heating device (9)
I believe the answer is:
stopwatch
'device' is the definition.
(stopwatch is a kind of device)
'roadwork at around beginning of winter about to get top heating' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'at' is within the answer.
'around' could be 'o' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'o' is present in the answer.
'about' could be 'c' (abbreviation for 'circa') and 'c' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for stopwatch that I've seen before include "Timepiece used to measure race results" , "Timer for races, etc" , "Race timer" , "Timepiece for timing, a race perhaps" , "Timepiece for recording speed of racers" .)