Cryptic crossword clue
Elderly man briefly hides dark side 7

The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 7 letter word GREYING

I've seen this crossword clue in Financial Times
G
R
E
Y
I
N
G

Buddy explains!

The straight part
We know that "Elderly" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case elderly = greying.
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 GREYING mean?

GREYING verb
  1. To become grey.
  2. To cause to become grey.
  3. To turn progressively older, in the context of the population of a geographic region.
  4. To give a soft effect to (a photograph) by covering the negative while printing with a ground-glass plate.

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