Little planning from recidivistic criminal (4)
I believe the answer is:
prep
'criminal' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't see how one could define the other.
'little planning from recidivistic' is the wordplay.
'little' suggests taking the first letters.
'from' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'recidivistic' becomes 'rep' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
The first letter of 'planning' is 'p'.
'p'+'rep'='PREP'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for prep that I've seen before include "Homework (abbr.)" , "School work done outside lessons" , "warm-up race" , "Homework (abbrev.)" .)