French not initially accepting quantity of work, having a bad reaction (8)
I believe the answer is:
allergic
'work having a bad reaction' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.
'french not initially accepting quantity' is the wordplay.
'french' becomes 'Gallic' (I've seen this before).
'not initially' means to remove the first letter.
'accepting' means one lot of letters goes inside another (inserted letters are accepted).
'quantity' becomes 'erg' (erg is a kind of quantity).
'gallic' with its initial letter taken off is 'allic'.
'allic' enclosing 'erg' is 'ALLERGIC'.
'of' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for allergic that I've seen before include "Responding badly (to something)" , "Having damaging immune response (to substance)" , "Having unfavourable reaction to, say pollen" , "Having unfavourable reaction to foods or plants" , "Medically sensitive to" .)