Unhappy combination of gale and ice (7)
I believe the answer is:
elegiac
'unhappy' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'combination of gale and ice' is the wordplay.
'combination of' indicates an anagram (I've seen this in other clues).
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'gale' put after 'ice' is 'icegale'.
'icegale' is an anagram of 'ELEGIAC'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for elegiac that I've seen before include "Lie in cage being poetically mournful" , "of valedictory works" , "Wistful, mournful" , "Wistfully mournful" , "Poetic, mournful" .)