Trips the twit and the attendants catch him (8)
I believe the answer is:
passages
'trips' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both acts as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'twit and the attendants catch him' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'twit' could be 'ass' (I've seen this in another clue) and 'ass' is present in the answer.
'attendants' could be 'pages' (page is a kind of attendant) and 'pages' is found within the leftover letters.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'the' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for passages that I've seen before include "sections of the speech" , "journeys" , "Narrow streets or routes" , "Sections of a text" , "parts of text" .)