Stung by failure to embrace exercise programme (5)
I believe the answer is:
duped
'stung' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with communicating as well as being past participle verbs.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'failure to embrace exercise programme' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'exercise' could be 'pe' (Physical Education) and 'pe' is found within the answer.
'failure' could be 'dud' (dud is a kind of failure) and 'dud' is located in the remaining letters.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'by' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for duped that I've seen before include "Deceived" , "Cheated" , "Taken for a ride" , "Fooled, codded" , "Bamboozled" .)