Slaughter in service area? (8)
I believe the answer is:
massacre
'slaughter' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'service area?' is the wordplay.
'service' becomes 'mass' (mass is a church service).
'area?' becomes 'acre' (an acre is an area of land).
'mass'+'acre'='MASSACRE'
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for massacre that I've seen before include "Slaughter, pogrom" , "Indiscriminate killing of large numbers" , "Destroy" , "Overwhelming defeat" , "Yours and mine" .)