Flag radical twirled in base? (8)
I believe the answer is:
standard
'base?' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'flag radical twirled in' is the wordplay.
'flag' becomes 'stand' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'radical' becomes 'rad'.
'twirled' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (I've seen 'twirling' mean this).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'rad' back-to-front is 'dar'.
'stand' placed around 'dar' is 'STANDARD'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for standard that I've seen before include "some soldiers find bearable?" , "Typical, normal" , "Normal - colours" , "Established or accepted model" , "Normal; flag" .)