Land is small nuisance (5)
I believe the answer is:
spain
'land' is the definition.
(Spain is an example)
'small nuisance' is the wordplay.
'small' becomes 's' (abbreviation - e.g. clothes size).
'nuisance' becomes 'pain' (synonyms).
's'+'pain'='SPAIN'
'is' is the link.
(Other definitions for spain that I've seen before include "Take pains to go there" , "It pains one to be out in this country" , "Crazy pains?" , "EU country" , "part of Europe" .)