Altercation had by society girl (6)
I believe the answer is:
debate
'altercation' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'had by society girl' is the wordplay.
'had' becomes 'ate' (e.g. I had an ice cream).
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'society girl' becomes 'deb' (I've seen this before).
'ate' after 'deb' is 'DEBATE'.
(Other definitions for debate that I've seen before include "consideration" , "Public argument" , "Discussion with arguments for and against" , "Heated discussion" , "Verbal disputation" .)