Goes sneakily about lifting cutlery (6)
I believe the answer is:
snoops
'goes' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are verbs in their -s form, I cannot understand how one could define the other.
'sneakily about lifting cutlery' is the wordplay.
'sneakily about' becomes 's' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'lifting' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'cutlery' becomes 'spoon' (spoon is a kind of cutlery).
'spoon' back-to-front is 'noops'.
's'+'noops'='SNOOPS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for snoops that I've seen before include "Spies, eavesdroppers" , "Sneaks" , "Pries inquisitively using spoons" , "Spies, eavesdrops" .)