Picasso had one hot, tense, fleeting encounter with secretary at the outset (10)
I believe the answer is:
paintbrush
'picasso' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't understand how they can define each other.
'one hot tense fleeting encounter with secretary at the outset' is the wordplay.
'one hot' becomes 'in' (both can mean fashionable).
'tense' becomes 't' (grammatical abbreviation).
'fleeting encounter with' becomes 'brush' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'secretary' becomes 'PA' (abbreviation for personal assistant).
'at the outset' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'in'+'t'+'brush'='intbrush'
'intbrush' put after 'pa' is 'PAINTBRUSH'.
'had' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for paintbrush that I've seen before include "Artist's tool" , "applicator such as this" , "Artist's applier" .)