Antiquary wasting a year translating verse (8)
I believe the answer is:
quatrain
'verse' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'antiquary wasting a year translating' is the wordplay.
'wasting' indicates named letters should be taken away.
'a year' becomes 'y'.
'translating' indicates an anagram (I've seen 'translated' mean this).
'antiquary' with 'y' removed is 'antiquar'.
'antiquar' with letters rearranged gives 'QUATRAIN'.
(Other definitions for quatrain that I've seen before include "Four-lined verse" , "Poet may write it" , "Poetry" , "Type of verse with four lines" , "Stanza or poem of four lines" .)