Believes Italy has silver in pits (8)
I believe the answer is:
imagines
'believes' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both related to thinking as well as being verbs in their -s form.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'italy has silver in pits' is the wordplay.
'italy' becomes 'i'.
'has' says to put letters next to each other.
'silver' becomes 'Ag' (Ag is the chemical symbol for silver).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'pits' becomes 'mines' (I've seen this in another clue).
'ag' placed inside 'mines' is 'magines'.
'i'+'magines'='IMAGINES'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for imagines that I've seen before include "Conjures up in the mind" , "Dreams of" , "Fancies" , "Supposes" , "Formed a mental image of something not present" .)