The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 3 plus 2 plus 3 plus 5 letter word CUT TO THE CHASE
I've seen this crossword clue in The Daily Telegraph
C
U
T
T
O
T
H
E
C
H
A
S
E
More clues leading to the result CUT TO THE CHASE
- Stop waffling and teach the scout knots
- Stop messing about and switch to TV quiz?
- Those with cute chat slammed: ‘Stop beating about the bush!’
- Ignoring Right, poor Thatcher’s cue to skip the preliminaries
- Avoid those — teach Harry to be brief
- Stop rambling about baby cheetahs frolicking around, following you noisily
- & 26 Across Teach those upset by reduction and focus on action
- Set to teach us manoeuvres to reach climax fast
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "Stop messing about" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case stop messing about = cut to the chase.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.