Woman gets clean away without her initial barrage (9)
I believe the answer is:
avalanche
'barrage' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot understand how they can define each other.
'woman gets clean away without her initial' is the wordplay.
'woman' becomes 'ava' (Ava is a woman's name).
'gets' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'away' is an anagram indicator (letters move away from their original places).
'without' means one lot of letters goes inside another ('without' can be similar in meaning to 'outside').
'initial' suggests taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'her' is 'h'.
'clean' with letters rearranged gives 'lance'.
'lance' going around 'h' is 'lanche'.
'ava'+'lanche'='AVALANCHE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for avalanche that I've seen before include "great fall" , "big fall" , "Come down heavily" , "Large mass of sliding snow or stone" , "falling-out in the Highlands?" .)