Drink supplier’s exploit having a lot of people running short (7)
I believe the answer is:
milkman
'drink supplier's' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot understand how one could define the other.
'exploit having a lot of people running short' is the wordplay.
'exploit' becomes 'milk' (to milk something is to exploit its potential).
'having' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'a lot of people' becomes 'many' (many people).
'running short' means to remove the last letter.
'many' with its last letter taken away is 'man'.
'milk'+'man'='MILKMAN'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for milkman that I've seen before include "Float driver" , "Man in charge of a float" , "Deliverer of dairy products" , "Pinta deliverer" , "Pint deliverer" .)