A North American attracting the old woman’s curse (8)
I believe the answer is:
anathema
'curse' is the definition.
(anathema can mean a curse)
'a north american attracting the old woman's' is the wordplay.
'north american' becomes 'na'.
'attracting' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'old woman' becomes 'ma' (both can mean someone's mother).
'a'+'na'+'the'+'ma'='ANATHEMA'
(Other definitions for anathema that I've seen before include "Religious curse" , "Cursed thing" , "Curse; object of loathing" , "Object of repulsion" , "loathsome" .)