Trim seconds from speech to religious group (4)
I believe the answer is:
sect
'religious group' is the definition.
(eg a religious sect)
'trim seconds from speech' is the wordplay.
'trim' means to remove the last letter (I've seen 'trimmed' mean this (the final letter is trimmed off)).
'seconds' becomes 'ss' (an abbreviation for seconds written twice).
'from' says to put letters next to each other.
'speech' becomes 'ect' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ss' with its last letter removed is 's'.
's'+'ect'='SECT'
'to' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for sect that I've seen before include "party" , "Religious splinter group" , "Dissenting division of a larger religious group" , "Group, faction" , "Group of people with unusual religious beliefs" .)