They dared to work and remove water (9)
I believe the answer is:
dehydrate
'remove water' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both related to change as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'they dared to work' is the wordplay.
'to work' is an anagram indicator (letters worked into a new order).
'they'+'dared'='theydared'
'theydared' is an anagram of 'DEHYDRATE'.
'and' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dehydrate that I've seen before include "Preserve by removing all liquid from" , "Deprive of water" , "Remove moisture content from, dry out" , "Drain" , "Remove water from" .)