Bombers essentially level city bordering lake without shame (8)
I believe the answer is:
brazenly
'without shame' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adverbs. Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'bombers essentially level city bordering lake' is the wordplay.
'essentially' says to take the centre.
'level' becomes 'raze' (synonyms).
'city' becomes 'NY' (short for New York).
'bordering' is an insertion indicator.
'lake' becomes 'L' (geographical abbreviation).
The centre of 'bombers' is 'b'.
'ny' placed around 'l' is 'nly'.
'b'+'raze'+'nly'='BRAZENLY'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for brazenly that I've seen is " Boldly, shamelessly".)