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Heartlessly fries chooks and reinvigorates (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

freshens

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'reinvigorates' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both related to bodily activities as well as being verbs in their -s form.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I don't see?

'heartlessly fries chooks' is the wordplay.
'heartlessly' means to remove the middle letters.
'chooks' becomes 'hens' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'fries' with its middle removed is 'fres'.
'fres'+'hens'='FRESHENS'

'and' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

I've seen this clue in the Sydney Morning Herald.
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