Swells loud during a soft composition (5)
I believe the answer is:
toffs
'swells' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'loud during a soft composition' is the wordplay.
'loud' becomes 'f' (A musical term).
'during' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'composition' is an anagram indicator.
'soft' is an anagram of 'tofs'.
'f' inserted within 'tofs' is 'TOFFS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for toffs that I've seen before include "aristos" , "smart people" , "Posh people" , "Posh gents" , "Posh blokes" .)