My son returned in a measured way, completing a sort of pattern? (9)
I believe the answer is:
symmetric
'way completing a sort of pattern?' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'my son returned in a measured' is the wordplay.
'son' becomes 's' (genealogical abbreviation for son).
'returned in' is a reversal indicator (I've seen 'returning in' mean this).
'a measured' becomes 'metric' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'my'+'s'='mys'
'mys' written backwards gives 'sym'.
'sym'+'metric'='SYMMETRIC'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for symmetric that I've seen before include "Equally balanced" , "Regular" .)