Beat the first article (3)
I believe the answer is:
tan
'beat' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'the first article' is the wordplay.
'the first' becomes 't' (1st letter of 'the').
'article' becomes 'an' (indefinite article).
't'+'an'='TAN'
(Other definitions for tan that I've seen before include "Lightish brown colour" , "Shade of brown" , "Tawny" , "Go brown" , "Thrash" .)