The duke may put his foot in it (10)
I believe the answer is:
wellington
'the duke may put his foot in it' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't understand how one could define the other.
'duke may put his foot in it' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'duke' could be 'ellington' (I've seen this before) and 'ellington' is found in the answer.
A single letter 'w' remains which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for wellington that I've seen before include "Knee-length boot" , "Footwear" , "Kind of boot" , "Statesman" , "NZ capital" .)