Romantic meeting with one novice, say, before flood (8)
I believe the answer is:
inundate
'flood' is the definition.
(I know that flood can be written as inundate)
'romantic meeting with one novice say before' is the wordplay.
'romantic meeting' becomes 'date' (I've seen this before).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'one' becomes 'i' (Roman numeral).
'novice say' becomes 'nun' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'before' says to put letters next to each other.
'i' put next to 'nun' is 'inun'.
'date' put after 'inun' is 'INUNDATE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for inundate that I've seen before include "Aunt Enid could engulf badly" , "Flood, fill completely" , "Submerge or cover in water" , "Overwhelm with things to be done" , "'Flood, swamp (8)'" .)