Drudge's commotion about a thousand runs in stockings (9)
I believe the answer is:
workhorse
'drudge's' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'commotion about a thousand runs in stockings' is the wordplay.
'commotion' becomes 'row' (a row is an argument or commotion).
'about' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'a thousand' becomes 'K' (synonyms).
'runs in stockings' becomes 'horse' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'row' backwards is 'wor'.
'wor'+'k'+'horse'='WORKHORSE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for workhorse that I've seen before include "Reliable toiler" , "Punch maybe" , "giving regular service" , "tireless toiler" , "Person (or machine) dependably slogging away" .)