Servant hugging old fellow on the river? (7)
I believe the answer is:
boatman
'the river?' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I can't understand how they can define each other.
'servant hugging old fellow' is the wordplay.
'servant' becomes 'batman' (I've seen this before).
'hugging' means one lot of letters goes inside another (outside letters hug or embrace inside letters).
'old fellow' becomes 'o' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'batman' enclosing 'o' is 'BOATMAN'.
'on' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for boatman that I've seen before include "He may have a smack" , "Water transport provider" , "One in charge of a small vessel" , "Sailor" , "One having row with" .)