Crossword Genius

Taunt Dickens over love that's vacuous (6)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

heckle

'taunt' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'dickens over love that's vacuous' is the wordplay.
'dickens' becomes 'heck' (both are mild curse words).
'over' says to put letters next to each other (in a down clue, some letters go over others).
'that's vacuous' means to remove the middle letters.
'love' with its centre taken out is 'le'.
'heck'+'le'='HECKLE'

(Other definitions for heckle that I've seen before include "Shout disruptively at performer" , "Shout from the audience" , "Verbally assault (public speaker)" , "Interrupt (a public speaker) with taunts" , "Shout abuse at, a speaker say" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.
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