Tow-headed person, in a manner of speaking (4)
I believe the answer is:
tone
'manner of speaking' is the definition.
(tone is a kind of manner of speaking)
'tow-headed person' is the wordplay.
'tow-headed' becomes 't' (this might be a standard abbreviation of which I'm unaware).
'person' becomes 'one' (I've seen this in other clues).
't'+'one'='TONE'
'in a' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tone that I've seen before include "Vocal sound of note" , "A pitch of note" , "Quality of sound, etc" , "Colour quality; note" , "Quality of a person's voice" .)