Crossword Genius

Lady briefly taking you for a Parisian in fact (5)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

datum

'fact' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'lady briefly taking you for a parisian' is the wordplay.
'lady' becomes 'dame' ('dame' can be a synonym of 'lady').
'briefly' means to remove the last letter.
'taking' is an insertion indicator.
'you for a parisian' becomes 'tu' ('you' in French).
'dame' with its last letter removed is 'dam'.
'dam' placed around 'tu' is 'DATUM'.

'in' acts as a link.

(Other definitions for datum that I've seen before include "Premiss, thing taken for granted" , "Basic fact" , "Given item" , "Minimal information" , "Fixed starting point for measurements" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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