Ooh, interesting construction. Took me a moment even now! It’s the word I had thought it should be, but I’d been trying to get something from “in the red” as my poor, which obviously didn’t work. Thanks mattrom.
Mooncow, the rubric is accurate about a CE (which can be a word or a phrase) having replaced a single word in the definition. We are seeing the altered form, not the original.
A great shame about the ambiguity in an otherwise excellent puzzle.