Exhausted soils within forest, say, providing shock (7)
I believe the answer is:
tresses
'providing shock' is the definition.
'tresses' can be an answer for 'shock' (thesaurus). I am not sure about the 'providing' bit.
'exhausted soils within forest' is the wordplay.
'exhausted' means to remove the middle letters (the word is emptied out or exhausted).
'within' indicates putting letters inside.
'forest' becomes 'trees' (a forest is made up of trees).
'soils' with its middle taken out is 'ss'.
'ss' placed within 'trees' is 'TRESSES'.
'say' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tresses that I've seen before include "The hair of the head" , "Long locks of hair" , "Long braids of hair" .)