General or private trial perhaps (5-7)

'general' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot see how one could define the other.

'private trial perhaps' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
an anagram of 'trial' is 'rtial' which is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

'or' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?