Abbot’s number two has it, with yen for preference (8)
I believe the answer is:
priority
'preference' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'abbot's number two has it with yen' is the wordplay.
'abbot's number two' becomes 'prior' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'has' says to put letters next to each other.
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'yen' becomes 'y' (resembles the symbol for the currency of Japan).
'prior'+'it'+'y'='PRIORITY'
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for priority that I've seen before include "Precedence in rank, the right to be first" , "First concern" , "Matter of greatest importance" , "Status establishing relative importance or urgency" , "Something regarded as more important than others" .)