Showing conviction of criminal breaking in, Feds felt excited (4-9)
I believe the answer is:
self-confident
'excited' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'showing conviction of criminal breaking in feds felt' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'showing' could be 'on' (as in a film showing or on at a cinema) and 'on' is found within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for self-confident that I've seen before include "Poised" , "Assuredly reliant on one's own powers" , "Sure of oneself" , "assured" , "Having faith in one's own abilities" .)