French water vendor contrived to try (9)
I believe the answer is:
endeavour
'to try' is the definition.
(I know this)
'french water vendor contrived' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'water' could be 'ea' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'ea' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for endeavour that I've seen before include "Expenditure of effort" , "Cook's old vessel" , "Industrious effort" , "famous ship" , "Morse" .)