Crossword Genius

Piercing Spartacus firstly with spear (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

strident

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'piercing' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'spartacus firstly with spear' is the wordplay.
'spartacus firstly' becomes 's' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'spear' becomes 'trident' (trident is a kind of spear).
's'+'trident'='STRIDENT'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for strident that I've seen before include "Harsh, grating" , "making a lot of noise" , "harsh sound" , "Tumultuous" , "Unpleasantly rough" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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