Drunken head of orphanage in Dickens ending in penury (5)
I believe the answer is:
boozy
'drunken' is the definition.
(I know that drunken can be written as boozy)
'head of orphanage in dickens ending in penury' is the wordplay.
'head of' suggests taking the first letters.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'dickens' becomes 'boz' (I've seen this in another clue).
'ending in' says to take the final letters.
The first letter of 'orphanage' is 'o'.
The last letter of 'penury' is 'y'.
'o' inserted inside 'boz' is 'booz'.
'booz'+'y'='BOOZY'
(Other definitions for boozy that I've seen before include "Dionysian" , "Happy" , "Drinking lots of alcohol" , "Alcoholic" .)