Nominally he may be less than pleasing (5)
I believe the answer is:
elias
'nominally he may be less than pleasing' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'nominally he' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'he' could be 'eli' and 'eli' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'as' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for elias that I've seen before include "Hebrew prophet" , "Fellow" .)