Soldier employed by the navy (3-2-3)
I believe the answer is:
man-of-war
'the navy' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't understand how they can define each other.
'soldier employed' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'soldier' could be 'man' (man can mean a soldier) and 'man' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'ofwar' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'by' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for man-of-war that I've seen before include "A battleship - for a fighter?" , "Fighting ship" , "Old naval ship" , "Armed sailing ship" , "Portuguese --, jellyfish" .)