Attitude from French and American prostitutes (5)
I believe the answer is:
ethos
'attitude' is the definition.
(I have seen 'Characteristic attitude' mean 'ethos' so perhaps 'attitude' could also mean 'ethos')
'french and american prostitutes' is the wordplay.
'french and' becomes 'et' ('and' in the French language).
'american prostitutes' becomes 'hos' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'et'+'hos'='ETHOS'
'from' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ethos that I've seen before include "General disposition" , "Distinctive traits of a culture, time etc" , "Distinctive group attitudes" , "Distinctive spirit - character" , "Characteristic standards of those" .)