Top journal dismissing duke's Animal Studies (8)
I believe the answer is:
bestiary
'animal studies' is the definition.
Although both the answer and 'studies' are nouns, they are not in the same form of the noun. However, I know that 'animal' relates to this answer.
'top journal dismissing duke's' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'top' could be 'best' (associated in meaning) and 'best' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bestiary that I've seen before include "Medieval collection of descriptions of animals" , "Medieval book of animals for sybarite" , "Medieval collection of animal descriptions for sybarite" , "Allegorical work" , "medieval treatise" .)