Blade with nick by the ear? (5)
I believe the answer is:
steel
'blade' is the definition.
(I know that blade can be written as steel)
'nick by the ear?' is the wordplay.
'nick' becomes 'steal' (nick can informally mean to steal).
'by the ear?' shows a homophone (sound like).
'steal' is a homophone of 'STEEL'.
'with' is the link.
(Other definitions for steel that I've seen before include "brace" , "The staying power" , "Hard iron alloy" , "Structural metal alloy" , "May be cold" .)