Short girl on pier dances in nightgown (8)
I believe the answer is:
peignoir
'nightgown' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'short girl on pier dances in' is the wordplay.
'short girl' becomes 'ig' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'dances' indicates anagramming the letters.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'on'+'pier'='onpier'
'onpier' anagrammed gives 'penoir'.
'ig' put into 'penoir' is 'PEIGNOIR'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for peignoir that I've seen before include "Woman's loose full dressing gown" , "Woman's light dressing gown" , "Loose dressing-gown" , "habit" , "Woman's light dressing-gown" .)