The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 5 letter word PIVOT
I've seen this crossword clue in The Sunday Telegraph
P
I
V
O
T
More clues leading to the result PIVOT
- Turn, facing celebrity’s back
- Turn of aviator’s learner to turn 45 degrees
- Turn to bigwig upon whom everything depends
- Turn to bigwig after being set up
- Turned to leading man or lady, one playing central role
- Something essential to dignitary in retirement
- To important person on the way up it’s the turning-point
- Turn to person of importance making a comeback
- Turn to celebrity for backing
- Depend on spin
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "one playing central role" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case one playing central role = pivot.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 PIVOT mean?
PIVOT noun- A thing on which something turns; specifically a metal pointed pin or short shaft in machinery, such as the end of an axle or spindle.
- (by extension) Something or someone having a paramount significance in a certain situation.
- Act of turning on one foot.
- The officer or soldier who simply turns in his place while the company or line moves around him in wheeling.
- A player with responsibility for co-ordinating their team in a particular jam.
- An element of a set to be sorted that is chosen as a midpoint, so as to divide the other elements into two groups to be dealt with recursively.
- A pivot table.
- Any of a row of captioned elements used to navigate to subpages, rather like tabs.
- An element of a matrix that is used as a focus for row operations, such as dividing the row by the pivot, or adding multiples of the row to other rows making all other values in the pivot column 0.
- A quarterback.
- A shift during a general election in a political candidate's messaging to reflect plans and values more moderate than those advocated during the primary.
- To turn on an exact spot.
- To make a sudden or swift change in strategy, policy, etc.