Sluggard and I had side-splitting ending of repartee (5)
I believe the answer is:
idler
'sluggard' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'had side-splitting ending of repartee' is the wordplay.
'had' becomes 'd' (in contractions e.g. 'I'd', 'you'd' etc).
'side' becomes 'l' (abbreviation for left).
'splitting' indicates putting letters inside (some letters split a word into two).
'ending of repartee' becomes 'ier' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'd'+'l'='dl'
'dl' going inside 'ier' is 'IDLER'.
'and i' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for idler that I've seen before include "One avoiding work" , "Riled (anag)" , "Slow-cooked dish" , "Drone" , "Layabout; Dr Johnson essay series" .)
