Dye said to fade (3)
I believe the answer is:
die
'fade' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'dye said' is the wordplay.
'said' indicates a 'sounds like' (homophone) clue.
'dye' is a homophone of 'DIE'.
'to' is the link.
(Other definitions for die that I've seen before include "On stage, suffer" , "Kick the bucket" , "Engraved device that stamps design on coins" , "Cease to live" , "one proverbially straight" .)