Crossword Genius

Separation of weird blokes in Egypt’s borders (12)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

estrangement

'separation' is the definition.
(estrangement is a kind of separation)

'weird blokes in egypt's borders' is the wordplay.
'weird' becomes 'strange' (synonyms).
'blokes' becomes 'men' (bloke can informally mean a man).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'borders' means to remove the middle letters (only the edge or border letters remain).
'egypt' with its middle taken out is 'et'.
'strange'+'men'='strangemen'
'strangemen' going into 'et' is 'ESTRANGEMENT'.

'of' is the link.

(Other definitions for estrangement that I've seen before include "Result of splitting up" , "division" , "lack of good relationship" , "Alienation" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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