Endless dearth affected footfall (5)
I believe the answer is:
tread
'footfall' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'endless dearth affected' is the wordplay.
'endless' means to remove the last letter.
'affected' indicates an anagram.
'dearth' with its last letter taken off is 'deart'.
'deart' anagrammed gives 'TREAD'.
(Other definitions for tread that I've seen before include "Sole of a shoe" , "Step (heavily)" , "Moulded part of a tyre" , "way of dancing" , "Put one's foot down!" .)