Take away in time carried back (7)
I believe the answer is:
detract
'take' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with social activities as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'away in time carried back' is the wordplay.
'away in time' becomes 't' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'carried' becomes 'carted' (carting is a kind of carrying).
'back' says the letters should be written backwards.
't'+'carted'='tcarted'
'tcarted' in reverse letter order is 'DETRACT'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for detract that I've seen before include "Take away (from value of something)" , "Reduce value" , "Derogate" , "Take away, character perhaps" , "Take away (from worth)" .)