9d Hit,strike (4) ?E?T -- on the 19th July in the Funday Xword, the same clue and the same letters came up, wish I knew what the answer was - Belt, Pelt or Beat, any more??
It was beAt in July, with identical wording of clue. I tend to assume same answer. If you reason it back the way, the compiler looks up "beat" in whichever dictionary, and "hit, strike" is the first definition. " Belt", for example, probably has "strip of cloth..." as its first definition, with "hit" lower down the listed meanings.