Complaint of a scholarly woman? (6)
I believe the answer is:
malady
'complaint' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a scholarly woman?' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'a' is present in the answer.
'woman?' could be 'lady' (lady is a kind of woman) and 'lady' is located in the answer.
A single letter 'm' remains which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'of' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for malady that I've seen before include "Sickness or disease" , "Complaint" , "Disease, ailment" , "Disease or disorder" , "Afflication" .)