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Work for French joiner, holding airline up? (5)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

exert

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'work' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'french joiner holding airline up?' is the wordplay.
'french joiner' becomes 'et' ('and' in French).
'holding' indicates putting letters inside.
'airline' becomes 'rex' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'up?' is a reversal indicator (I've seen 'up' mean this (in down clue: letters go upwards)).
'rex' backwards is 'xer'.
'et' placed around 'xer' is 'EXERT'.

'for' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for exert that I've seen before include "Expend" , "Strive" , "Bring into use, apply" , "Cartoon 4 across" , "Wield - apply" .)

I've seen this clue in the Sydney Morning Herald.
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