Shocking threat in ship wrecks (8)
I believe the answer is:
shatters
'wrecks' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are verbs in their -s form, I cannot understand how one could define the other.
'shocking threat in ship' is the wordplay.
'shocking' is an anagram indicator (I've seen this in other clues).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'ship' becomes 'SS' (prefix in ship names eg SS Great Britain).
'threat' with letters rearranged gives 'hatter'.
'hatter' put into 'ss' is 'SHATTERS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for shatters that I've seen before include "Breaks into small pieces" , "Breaks into little pieces" , "falls apart" , "Breaks into many pieces" .)