Indian gentleman has uppity nibs trimmed (5)
I believe the answer is:
sahib
'indian gentleman' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'has uppity nibs trimmed' is the wordplay.
'uppity' says the letters should be written backwards.
'trimmed' says to take the centre (the external letters are trimmed from the word).
The centre of 'nibs' is 'ib'.
'has' reversed gives 'sah'.
'sah'+'ib'='SAHIB'
(Other definitions for sahib that I've seen before include "Term of respect to man in India" , "man's address" , "In India, Sir" , "Sir (raj)" , "Indian title of respect" .)