Shorten some articles relating to manicure (7)
I believe the answer is:
cuticle
'manicure' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I can't understand how one could define the other.
'shorten some articles relating' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'shorten' could be 'cut' (synonyms) and 'cut' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'to' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cuticle that I've seen before include "Dead skin at nail's base" , "Protective layer" , "Dead skin at the base of a fingernail" , "Skin at the base of a nail" , "area of dead skin" .)