Vilify as “a nincompoop with a good figure” (6)
I believe the answer is:
assail
'vilify' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a nincompoop with a good figure' is the wordplay.
'a nincompoop' becomes 'ass' (I've seen this before).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'a good figure' becomes 'ail' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ass'+'ail'='ASSAIL'
'as' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for assail that I've seen before include "Launch an attack" , "Criticise severely" , "Attack, lash out" , "Attack violently and persistently" , "Molest or harass" .)