A spanner or clip? (7)
I believe the answer is:
abridge
'clip?' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a spanner' is the wordplay.
'spanner' becomes 'bridge' (I've seen this before).
'a'+'bridge'='ABRIDGE'
'or' is the link.
(Other definitions for abridge that I've seen before include "Remove sections" , "Cut short" , "Abbreviate, contract" , "Shorten written work" , "Edit down" .)