Crossword Genius

Shakespeare character in car, on the phone? (6)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

portia

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'phone?' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?

'shakespeare character in car on the' is the wordplay.
'shakespeare' becomes 'por' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'character in' means to look at the middle letters (I've seen 'characters in' mean this).
'car' becomes 'Fiat' (car manufacturer).
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'the' becomes 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects).
The centre of 'fiat' is 'ia'.
'ia' put after 't' is 'tia'.
'por'+'tia'='PORTIA'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for portia that I've seen before include "judge" , "Character in "Julius Caesar" or "The Merchant of Venice"" , "Advocate of cross-dressing" , "A Shakespearean heroine" , "She married Bassanio (Merchant of Venice)" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.
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