Rodent caught with the newfangled mechanical device (7)
I believe the answer is:
ratchet
'mechanical device' is the definition.
(ratchet is a kind of mechanical device)
'rodent caught with the newfangled' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'rodent' could be 'rat' (rat is a kind of rodent) and 'rat' is found in the answer.
'caught' could be 'c' (cricket abbreviation) and 'c' is present in the answer.
an anagram of 'the' is 'het' which is present in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ratchet that I've seen before include "Bar to fit the notches of a toothed wheel" , "Make steady progress" , "One-way mechanism" , "It forces one-way motion" , "Device allowing only one-way motion" .)
