Turned in first item for auction – cartouche initially from Egypt? (7)
I believe the answer is:
nilotic
'egypt?' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot understand how one could define the other.
'turned in first item for auction cartouche initially' is the wordplay.
'turned' says the letters should be written backwards.
'first' says to put letters next to each other.
'item for auction' becomes 'lot' (I've seen this before).
'cartouche initially' becomes 'ic' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in' written backwards gives 'ni'.
'ni'+'lot'+'ic'='NILOTIC'
'from' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for nilotic that I've seen before include "Of Africa's longest river" , "of African people" , "In Africa such tongues" , "tongue of Africans" , "Group of East African languages" .)