Availing oneself of when ushering her out (5)
I believe the answer is:
using
'availing oneself of' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to consumption as well as being present participle verbs.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'ushering her out' is the wordplay.
'out' is a deletion indicator.
'ushering' with 'her' removed is 'USING'.
'when' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for using that I've seen before include "Putting to a particular purpose" , "addiction" , "Utilising" , "Exploiting for one's own advantage" , "Putting into service" .)