Tory resorted to drinking with uplifting female figure (5-3)
I believe the answer is:
forty-two
'tory resorted to drinking with uplifting female figure' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot judge whether it can be defined by this definition.
'tory resorted to drinking with uplifting female figure' is the wordplay.
'resorted' indicates an anagram.
'to drinking' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'uplifting female' becomes 'f' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'figure' becomes 'two' (two is a number).
'tory' with letters rearranged gives 'orty'.
'f'+'two' is 'ftwo'.
'orty' put into 'ftwo' is 'FORTY-TWO'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for forty-two that I've seen before include "The answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy)" , "Three fourteens" , "Douglas Adams' numerical Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything" .)