County fortunate not starting to become a state (8)
I believe the answer is:
kentucky
'a state' is the definition.
(Kentucky is an example)
'county fortunate not starting' is the wordplay.
'county' becomes 'kent' (Kent is an example).
'fortunate' becomes 'lucky' ('lucky' can be similar in meaning to 'fortunate').
'not starting' means to remove the first letter.
'lucky' with its first letter taken away is 'ucky'.
'kent'+'ucky'='KENTUCKY'
'to become' is the link.
(Other definitions for kentucky that I've seen before include "American state" , "In USA it is know as the Bluegrass State" , "US state, capital Frankfort" , "Derby area" , "US state with an annual Derby race since 1875" .)