The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 8 letter word OBEISANT
I've seen this crossword clue in Financial Times
O
B
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A
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More clues leading to the result OBEISANT
- Born in Estonia, struggling to be deferential
- Worker following order is deferential
- Is worker perhaps following order and showing deference?
- After an order, is the worker showing respect?
- One’s a bit naughty, but not disrespectful
- Order one’s driver, perhaps, to be courteous
- Honour is given to worker kowtowing maybe
- One’s a bit put out, having to be deferential
- Submissive love is a parting gift
- Servile old beast's wandering around carrying setter and neighbour initially
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.