Smart money as wage? (7)
I believe the answer is:
learned
'smart' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'money as wage?' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'money' could be 'l' (L can mean 'pounds') and 'l' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'earned' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for learned that I've seen before include "Came to know" , "Discovered - erudite" , "Absorbed information about Leander" , "widely read" , "Got to know" .)