Country, say, yielding pharaohs, tremendous leaders (5)
I believe the answer is:
egypt
'country' is the definition.
(Egypt is an example)
'say yielding pharaohs tremendous leaders' is the wordplay.
'say' becomes 'eg'.
'leaders' says to take the initial letters.
The initial letters of 'yielding pharaohs tremendous' is 'ypt'.
'eg'+'ypt'='EGYPT'
(Other definitions for egypt that I've seen before include "Where Cavafy wrote" , "Part of Africa" , "Cairo's country" , "Land of the lower Nile" , "Site of Sinai desert" .)