Studies water grasses, they say (5)
I believe the answer is:
reads
'studies' is the definition.
(I know this)
'water grasses they say' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'water' could be 'ea' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'ea' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for reads that I've seen before include "Peruses" , "Looks at and undertsands the written word" , "Studies (at university)" , "Understands written language" , "Scans" .)