Time lost from lead, perhaps for something to eat (4)
I believe the answer is:
meal
'to eat' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'time lost from lead perhaps for something' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'lost' could be 'l' (abbreviation in sporting league tables) and 'l' is located in the answer.
'from' could be 'e' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'e' is found within the answer.
The remaining letters 'ma' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for meal that I've seen before include "Food taken at a particular time" , "Coarsely ground cereal seeds" , "Breakfast, lunch or dinner" , "dinner, maybe" , "Food ground up" .)