Spirit associated with us sparks gossip (7)
I believe the answer is:
rumours
'gossip' is the definition.
(I know this)
'spirit associated with us sparks' is the wordplay.
'spirit' becomes 'rum' (alcoholic spirit).
'associated with us' becomes 'our' ('our' is the possessive pronoun for 'us').
'sparks' becomes 's' (this could be a standard abbreviation I've not previously seen).
'rum'+'our'+'s'='RUMOURS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for rumours that I've seen before include "Unverified assertions" , "News passed around which may or may not be true" , "Gossip, hearsay" , "Hearsay stories" .)