The queen is surrounded by chips or ships (7)
I believe the answer is:
ferries
'ships' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both man-made objects as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'the queen is surrounded by chips' is the wordplay.
'the queen' becomes 'ER' (Elizabeth Regina).
'is surrounded by' indicates putting letters inside.
'chips' becomes 'fries' (I've seen this before).
'er' placed within 'fries' is 'FERRIES'.
'or' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ferries that I've seen before include "Transports" , "Passenger ships plying a waterway" .)