Italian scoffed after the man's pause (8)
I believe the answer is:
hesitate
'pause' is the definition.
(I know that pause can be written as hesitate)
'italian scoffed after the man's' is the wordplay.
'italian' becomes 'it' (abbreviation for Italian).
'scoffed' becomes 'ate' ('to scoff' is to eat).
'after' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'the man's' becomes 'he's' (he refers to a man).
'it'+'ate'='itate'
'itate' after 'hes' is 'HESITATE'.
(Other definitions for hesitate that I've seen before include "'Pause, dither (8)'" , "Delay making a decision" , "Stall" , "To do so is to be lost, they say" , "He who does it may be lost" .)