Judge engaged in pure finesse to cut bigotry (9)
I believe the answer is:
prejudice
'bigotry' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'judge engaged in pure finesse to cut' is the wordplay.
'judge' becomes 'J' (abbreviation for judge).
'engaged in' indicates putting letters inside.
'finesse' indicates an anagram (letters finessed into a new form).
'to cut' becomes 'dice' (dicing is a kind of cutting).
'pure' is an anagram of 'preu'.
'j' inserted inside 'preu' is 'preju'.
'preju'+'dice'='PREJUDICE'
(Other definitions for prejudice that I've seen before include "Bigotry" , "Influence (someone's) opinion in advance" , "Jane Austen wrote 'Pride and . . . .'" , "Bias" , "Intolerance" .)