George starts eating the small round ball (6)
I believe the answer is:
pellet
'small round ball' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'george starts eating the' is the wordplay.
'george' becomes 'pell' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'starts' suggests taking the first letters.
The first letters of 'eating the' is 'et'.
'pell'+'et'='PELLET'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for pellet that I've seen before include "Shot -- slug" , "Small round ball" , "Mass of bones and feathers from bird" , "Small bullet" , "Small rounded mass" .)