Almost respect a liberal officer (7)
I believe the answer is:
admiral
'officer' is the definition.
(admiral is a kind of officer)
'almost respect a liberal' is the wordplay.
'almost' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'respect' becomes 'admire' (admiring is a kind of respecting).
'a liberal' becomes 'al' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'admire' with its final letter removed is 'admir'.
'admir'+'al'='ADMIRAL'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for admiral that I've seen before include "Benbow, say" , "Top-ranking naval officer" , "foremost in fleet" , "High-ranking naval officer like Nelson" , "Chief commander of fleet" .)