Successor pronounced most of island free of earth? (8)
I believe the answer is:
airborne
'free of earth?' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'successor pronounced most of island' is the wordplay.
'successor' becomes 'heir' (synonyms).
'pronounced' shows a homophone (sound like).
'most of' means to remove the last letter.
'island' becomes 'Borneo' (Indonesian island).
'heir' sounds like 'air'.
'borneo' with its last letter taken away is 'borne'.
'air'+'borne'='AIRBORNE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for airborne that I've seen before include "in Hercules, perhaps" , "in the sky" , "so, paras?" , "as birds often are" , "In flight after taking off" .)