Leaves on the clipper, perhaps? (3)
I believe the answer is:
tea
'leaves' is the definition.
(as in tea leaves)
'on the clipper perhaps?' is the wordplay.
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'the' becomes 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects).
'clipper perhaps?' becomes 'ea' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
't' put next to 'ea' is 'TEA'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tea that I've seen before include "grass" , "Assam or Darjeeling, for example" , "Meal/drink" , "- - for Two (song)" , "Plantation product" .)