Shortly the lad will possess nothing (4)
I believe the answer is:
soon
'shortly' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'lad will possess nothing' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'nothing' could be 'o' (looks like zero - 0) and 'o' is present in the answer.
'lad' could be 'son' (lad can informally mean a young boy) and 'son' is present in the remaining letters.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'the' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for soon that I've seen before include "Willingly" , "In the near future" , "in a minute" , "In a little while" , "Before you can say Jack Robinson" .)
