Honest woman twice left out (5)
I believe the answer is:
level
'honest' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'woman twice left out' is the wordplay.
'woman' becomes 'eve' (Eve is an example).
'twice' says to double the letters.
'left' becomes 'L' (common abbreviation).
'out' indicates putting letters inside.
'l' duplicated is 'll'.
'eve' placed within 'll' is 'LEVEL'.
(Other definitions for level that I've seen before include "Horizontal line" , "Even - equal" , "Flatten" , "Palindromically smooth" , "Standard" .)