Sighs sadly about riotous din in festivities (8)
I believe the answer is:
shindigs
'festivities' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are plural nouns, I cannot understand how they can define each other.
'sighs sadly about riotous din' is the wordplay.
'sadly' indicates an anagram.
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'riotous' is an anagram indicator.
'sighs' with letters rearranged gives 'shigs'.
'din' anagrammed gives 'ind'.
'shigs' enclosing 'ind' is 'SHINDIGS'.
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for shindigs that I've seen before include "Noisy parties" , "Boisterous parties" .)