Fancy making yen first (8)
I believe the answer is:
yearning
'fancy' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'making yen first' is the wordplay.
'making' becomes 'earning' ('earn' can be a synonym of 'make'**).
'yen' becomes 'y'.
'first' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'earning' after 'y' is 'YEARNING'.
(Other definitions for yearning that I've seen before include "Yen" , "Unfulfilled desire or need" , "Strong desire" , "Longing, pining" , "Feeing great desire" .)