Spot small dish (8)
I believe the answer is:
splatter
'spot' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'small dish' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'small' could be 's' (abbreviation - e.g. clothes size) and 's' is found within the answer.
'dish' could be 'platter' (platter is a kind of dish) and 'platter' is found in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for splatter that I've seen before include "Splash with sticky liquid" , "Of a cloud in space" , "Splash, splutter" , "Small amount of something liquid" , "Sprinkle" .)