Old contest involving Liberal know-it-all (6)
I believe the answer is:
oracle
'know-it-all' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'old contest involving liberal' is the wordplay.
'old' becomes 'o' (common abbreviation eg in OE for Old English).
'contest' becomes 'race' (race is a kind of contest).
'involving' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'liberal' becomes 'l' (abbreviation).
'race' enclosing 'l' is 'racle'.
'o'+'racle'='ORACLE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for oracle that I've seen before include "Infallible authority" , "Sybil" , "Diviner of the future" , "Wise utterance" , "sign of things to come" .)