Lived in the western part of Asia (3)

I believe the answer is:

was

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'lived' is the definition.
('be' can be a synonym of 'live')

'in the western part of asia' is the wordplay.
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'the western' becomes 'ws' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'part of' indicates taking the first letters (I've seen 'part' mean this).
The initial letter of 'asia' is 'a'.
'ws' going around 'a' is 'WAS'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for was that I've seen before include "Used to be" , "Existed in the past" , "Lived" , "(He/she) existed" , "Did live" .)

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.

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