Joy, without envy, oddly, gets promotion (9)
I believe the answer is:
elevation
'promotion' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'joy without envy oddly' is the wordplay.
'joy' becomes 'elation' (elation is a kind of joy**).
'without' means one lot of letters goes inside another ('without' can be similar in meaning to 'outside').
'oddly' means one should take alternating letters.
The alternate letters of 'envy' are 'ev'.
'elation' enclosing 'ev' is 'ELEVATION'.
'gets' is the link.
(Other definitions for elevation that I've seen before include "Height above sea level" , "High point" , "Architectural drawing" , "Height - promotion" , "plan" .)