Normally they're demarcated. It's possible to make the definition and the wordplay the same thing, and it's kind of an "Oh wow" moment when you see it done well, but that kind of clue has to be really, really crisp and tidy, I think. Mad skillz needed.
What's not really allowed is a "bit of wordplay, bit of definition, bit of wordplay" sort of a jumble.
I can either give a letter, or there might be a better/easier way to phrase the clue. How does this work, do you tell me your candidate or do I spill more beans?
No, it's OK, I think I've got it. It's a bit unorthodox, because if I'm right, your wordplay bit is actually a "wordplay, then synonym, then more wordplay" bit, but it's not as if you never see stuff like that done.
Well, they can, but there are kind of unwritten rules (probably written rules, actually, known to the likes of Duncan Gardner) about how far it's OK to go.
For example, one we've talked about on this thread, and its predecessor, is the use of synonyms together with full-fledged anagrams, something that's generally agreed to be too hard. Synonyms together with simple inversions or truncations, on the other hand, you see all over the place.
Yours was a synonym sandwiched between a truncation and (I guess you'd call it) a concatenation, and as such was perhaps a bit envelope-pushing. But personally I think it's OK. The definition part was straightforward, which helps when the wordplay part is unusually hard.
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