Criticise volume one? Biography cut short before end of story (6)
I believe the answer is:
vilify
'criticise' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with communicating as well as being verbs in their base form.
Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'volume one? biography cut short before end of story' is the wordplay.
'volume' becomes 'v' (abbreviation for volume in book titles).
'one?' becomes 'I' (Roman numeral).
'biography' becomes 'life' (synonyms).
'cut short' means to remove the last letter.
'before end of story' becomes 'y' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'life' with its final letter taken off is 'lif'.
'v'+'i'+'lif'+'y'='VILIFY'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for vilify that I've seen before include "rubbish" , "Malign or defame" , "Abusively disparage" , "Abuse - defame" , "Spread negative information about" .)