Solitary TV presenter cut short piece (9)

I believe the answer is:

anchorite

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'solitary' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'tv presenter cut short piece' is the wordplay.
'tv presenter' becomes 'anchor' (I've seen this before).
'cut short' means to remove the last letter.
'piece' becomes 'rite' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'anchor' with its last letter taken off is 'ancho'.
'ancho'+'rite'='ANCHORITE'

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(Other definitions for anchorite that I've seen before include "Hermit or religious recluse" , "Religious recluse (hist.)" , "Loner" , "Holy recluse" , "A solitary person" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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