The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 5 letter word OXIDE
I've seen this crossword clue in Independent
O
X
I
D
E
More clues leading to the result OXIDE
- Water, perhaps, over by fish
- Farm animal I’d put on drug, a chemical compound
- Lines bounding cricket team’s compound
- Chemical compound stored in box, I’d expect
- Beast and fish compound
- Extract hydrogen from leather compound
- Compound France’s 10-0 reverse with England’s opener
- Chemical making leather without using hydrogen
- Band Kiss on March 15th, not 2nd? Might be rusty.
- Bull's skin missing some heterocyclic compound
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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.
What does OXIDE mean?
OXIDE noun- A binary chemical compound of oxygen with another chemical element.