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I have a clue that says "Try to acquire new tie (4)"

The answer can only be BIND, because the latter B and N are correct.

The missing letters are B?N?

I can't work out how to parse it.

Can anyone help, please?

Thanks.

Bid = try to acquire
New gives you N, abbreviation.
Bind, tie.

I think to be precise it’s BID = try, acquiring, ie surrounding N = new, giving BIND, with tie the definition

Thanks, Quisling.

Sorry if I was being pedantic Malone!

No, it's fine, Quisling. I was originally just going to give the Bid and N stuff, then saw the OP mentioned parsing. I shouldn't do things in a hurry!

Thanks to you both, Malone and Quisling.

I am always amazed at the collective knowledge of contributors to this forum.

Most of the time, I can parse the answers to clues, but at times, I cannot work out the basis for what I think is the correct answer.

Thanks again.

Thanks, Nimus, glad we could help. I'm often better at solving than parsing... but there are many others on here who are more skilled!