Course: figure office has cancelled it in city (8)
I believe the answer is:
tendency
'course' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'figure office has cancelled it in city' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'figure' could be 'c' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'c' is found within the answer.
'office' could be 'den' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'den' is located in the answer.
'it' could be 't' (abbreviation. e.g. in 'tis) and 't' is found within the answer.
'city' could be 'ny' (short for New York) and 'ny' is found in the leftover letters.
A single letter 'e' remains which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tendency that I've seen before include "Political group" , "Proclivity" , "Likelihood - inclination" , "Predisposition" , "'Inclination, propensity (8)'" .)