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Posted Yesterday by Rudest Elf
Google has found the following arcane word, which doesn't quite match your definition:
"HUMDUDGEON
An imaginary illness.
Seemingly a blend of humbug and dudgeon, it is first recorded in Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue in 1785, in which he says “He has got the hum dugeon, the thickest part of his thigh is nearest his ar*e; i.e. nothing ails him except low spirits”. The word was obsolete, according to Partridge, by the 1890s." World Wide Words
"Swinging the lead - A person pretending to work (or claiming to be ill) when he is not.
Pre-modern days, seamen would check the depth of water by dropping
a lead weight, attached to a thin marked rope, to the bottom of a
waterway. Some lazy sailors would take as long as possible about it.
They would swing the lead to and fro several times instead of just
dropping it straight into the water." The Phrase Finder
Obscurity upon obscurity! I just don't see the point - but perhaps other players disagree. 
Tell me I'm wrong, PBS.
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Posted Yesterday by Captain Slogg (Stardate 49263.8)
Humdudgeon an imaginary pain or illness
Hum=smell
dudgeon=indignant
Jeez, that was a long weekend
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Posted Yesterday by Captain Slogg (Stardate 49263.8)
Sorry Rudest Elf, Hand't realised that you'd already posted answer
I found Humdugeon after trying various combinations which lead me to "High dudgeon" and was offered the hum one as a alternative and found the definition on "WWFTDs" (worthless words for the day). No really, http://www.answers.com/library/Obscure%20Words-cid-2303979
Go figure.
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Posted Yesterday by hygienicdispenser
I wouldn't have got that. I did, at one point, think of starting with Hum, but I couldn't make humdinger fit the rest of the clue!
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Posted Yesterday by hygienicdispenser
My Chambers Dictionary lists humdudgeon as meaning either an unnecessary outcry, or low spirits.
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Posted Yesterday by Recumbentman
I imagine 'swinging the lead' meant dangling it in the water without letting it fall all the way to the bottom, to save yourself the trouble of hauling it all the way up again. You would take it for granted that the depth of the water was much the same as your last few measurements, and just call out some handy figure to the person taking notes. Bad science, in a word.
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Posted Yesterday by PedanticBarSteward
Sorreeeeeeeeee
I thought these were cryptic clues and I have been ticked off before. But the clue is in the true sense of the game - it is in there twice. I thought that adding a third - the anagram - would just be too easy. Also, the word is not THAT archaic, not used at the Rat & Trumpets Slate Club admittedly but used within my lifetime.
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Posted Yesterday by PedanticBarSteward
Perhaps - having read the back comments 'hum' as in; "Gawd Streuth, ee 'umms a bit" is another way of commenting on a gentleman's bodily hygiene from the east end of London to Plymouth.
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Posted Yesterday by Recumbentman
No problems with hum or dudgeon; but humdudgeon I have never met before this occasion. I prefer words I don't have to google for, or consult an electronic dictionary with a wildcard function. Call me old-fashioned, dictionally challenged, dim . . . 
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Posted Yesterday by Reddyfreddy
Every couple of weeks or so The Times crossword comes up with a word that I've never heard of. I consider myself pretty well-read with a wide vocabulary. I treat it as a learning opportunity, and I'm happy to add humdudgeon to my vocabulary (how come there isn't another word for vocabulary?  ) Tomorrow I will use it in a sentence to someone and see their reaction.
RF
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Posted Yesterday by PedanticBarSteward
Yet we lack a clew? (4)
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Posted Yesterday by Recumbentman
I've just bought a Latin-English dictionary for my iPhone. I very soon had a ping! moment -- I realised this must have been what Nabokov did, looked up Latin words and converted them into English ones. It's so easy, and it always works.
I flicked through and stopped at glomus: a ball of thread. Of course, hence conglomeration. Then orexis: appetite. Of course, hence anorexia.
And so on. Hours of innocent fun.
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Posted Yesterday by Recumbentman
Strange <simulpost> since glomus is also a clue (or clew) of thread 
But if we take c l e w from 'we lack' we only have a & k left . . . wrong tree obviously.
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Posted Yesterday by Reddyfreddy
Isn't a clew a hole on a sail? And a lack could be a hole.
I reckon it's HOLE.
RF
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Posted Yesterday by Rudest Elf
Hold on a dang moment, fellas . You'll have to solve mine first:
A distant object of little consequence or so they say (8)
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Posted Yesterday by hygienicdispenser
Farthing?
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Posted Yesterday by Rudest Elf
That's the one I would have posted had PBS not jumped in ahead..... ooooh, it seems so long ago.
 
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Posted Yesterday by gandalfstwin OGGMSTKMBGSUIKWIATA
I would have said Asteroid.....starlike....
But a lot smaller!!!!!
GT
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