Smooth coming back from across the pond, then hail (5)
I believe the answer is:
suave
'smooth' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'coming back from across the pond then hail' is the wordplay.
'coming back' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'from across the pond' becomes 'us' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'then' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'hail' becomes 'ave' (I've seen this before).
'us' in reverse letter order is 'su'.
'su'+'ave'='SUAVE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for suave that I've seen before include "Smoothly affable" , "Charming, elegant" , "Svelte" , "Superficially polite" , "Charming, confident" .)