German is stopping ball in stretch (8)
I believe the answer is:
distance
'stretch' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'german is stopping ball' is the wordplay.
'german' becomes 'ist' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'is stopping' indicates putting letters inside (stopping can mean blocking a gap).
'ball' becomes 'dance' (ball can mean an event for dancing).
'ist' placed inside 'dance' is 'DISTANCE'.
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for distance that I've seen before include "Space between two objects or points" , "Length between points - remoteness" , "See 3" , "Full extent of fighting" , "Space between two places" .)