Figures England's capital is exciting! (5)
I believe the answer is:
tense
'exciting' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'figures england's capital' is the wordplay.
'figures' becomes 'tens' (ten is a number).
'capital' suggests taking the first letters.
The first letter of 'englands' is 'e'.
'tens'+'e'='TENSE'
'is' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tense that I've seen before include "Unrelaxed; form of verb" , "Subject to strain" , "contract" , "Future, possibly" , "Taut, strained" .)