Husband leaving chain rattling in fruit machine (9)
I believe the answer is:
appliance
'machine' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'husband leaving chain rattling in fruit' is the wordplay.
'husband' becomes 'h'.
'leaving' is a deletion indicator.
'rattling' indicates anagramming the letters.
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'fruit' becomes 'apple' (apple is a kind of fruit**).
'chain' with 'h' taken away is 'cain'.
'cain' with letters rearranged gives 'ianc'.
'ianc' inserted inside 'apple' is 'APPLIANCE'.
(Other definitions for appliance that I've seen before include "Piece of kit" , "Machine, piece of equipment" , "Domestic machine" , "implement" , "Instrument for a particular purpose" .)