Rubbed mad sages the wrong way (8)
I believe the answer is:
massaged
'rubbed' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with contact as well as being past participle verbs.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'mad sages the wrong way' is the wordplay.
'the wrong way' is an anagram indicator (I've seen this in other clues).
'mad'+'sages'='madsages'
'madsages' is an anagram of 'MASSAGED'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for massaged that I've seen before include "treated by hand" , "given rub" , "Statistically manipulated" , "Rubbed, manipulated" , "Rubbed and kneaded the body" .)