Youth in south multiplying by three (9)
I believe the answer is:
stripling
'youth' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'south multiplying by three' is the wordplay.
'south' becomes 's' (abbreviation).
'multiplying' becomes 'pling' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'three' becomes 'tri' (prefix meaning 'three').
'pling' put after 'tri' is 'tripling'.
's'+'tripling'='STRIPLING'
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for stripling that I've seen before include "youngster" , "Youth" , "Young boy" , "Young man" , "Lad" .)