Female crossing river died: RIP (5)
I believe the answer is:
shred
'rip' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'female crossing river died' is the wordplay.
'female' becomes 'she' ('she' refers to a woman).
'crossing' means one lot of letters goes inside another (to cross can mean to go over or around).
'river' becomes 'r' (abbreviation).
'died' becomes 'd' (abbreviation next to the year of someone's death).
'she' enclosing 'r' is 'shre'.
'shre'+'d'='SHRED'
(Other definitions for shred that I've seen before include "Cut into bits" , "Scrap of material" , "(Reduce to) small piece(s)" , "Small, thin scrap" , "Bit of rag" .)