Endowment for foot soldier? On the contrary (4)
I believe the answer is:
gift
'endowment' is the definition.
(I know that endowment can be written as gift)
'foot soldier? on the contrary' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'foot' could be 'ft' (synonyms) and 'ft' is located in the answer.
'soldier?' could be 'gi' (GI can mean a US soldier) and 'gi' is present in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for gift that I've seen before include "Present - natural aptitude" , "Knack" , "Donation" , "Give away" , "A natural attribute" .)