Drop toast, essentially across floor? On the contrary (4)
I believe the answer is:
bead
'drop' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'toast essentially across floor? on the contrary' is the wordplay.
'essentially' means to look at the middle letters.
'across floor?' becomes 'deb' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'on' indicates putting letters inside (as in clothing 'on' a person).
'the contrary' says the letters should be written backwards.
The centre of 'toast' is 'a'.
'a' going inside 'deb' is 'daeb'.
'daeb' back-to-front is 'BEAD'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bead that I've seen before include "Small ornamental strung ball" , "A bit of the rosary" , "Drop, part of rosary" , "bit off necklace, say" , "Glass ball" .)