Notoriously thirsty thespian drinking gallons in lake showed up again (2-7)
I believe the answer is:
re-emerged
'notoriously thirsty thespian' is the definition.
The answer and definition are not the same part of speech. However, adjectives and past participle verbs can occasionally mean the same thing.
'drinking gallons in lake showed up again' is the wordplay.
'drinking' means one lot of letters goes inside another (inserted letters are consumed or drunk).
'gallons' becomes 'G' (abbreviation).
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'lake' becomes 'mere' (mere is a kind of lake).
'showed up again' becomes 'reed' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'g' placed inside 'mere' is 'merge'.
'merge' inserted into 'reed' is 'RE-EMERGED'.
Can you help me to learn more?