Tending, as before, to carry on (5)
I believe the answer is:
prone
'tending' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'before to carry on' is the wordplay.
'before' becomes 'pre'.
'to carry' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'pre' placed around 'on' is 'PRONE'.
'as' is the link.
(Other definitions for prone that I've seen before include "Lying face down - inclined" , "Lying flat" , "Lying face downward" , "Liable (to suffer) - lying down" , "Prostrate" .)