The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 1 plus 5 plus 3 letter word A THICK EAR
I've seen this crossword clue in Financial Times
A
T
H
I
C
K
E
A
R
Buddy explains!
The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.