Man has nearly forty days to find girl (5)
I believe the answer is:
helen
'girl' is the definition.
'man has nearly forty days' is the wordplay.
'man' becomes 'he' (**).
'has' says to put letters next to each other.
'nearly' means to remove the last letter.
'forty days' becomes 'lent' (I've seen this before).
'lent' with its last letter removed is 'len'.
'he'+'len'='HELEN'
'to find' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for helen that I've seen before include "She started Trojan War" , "Trojan war beauty" , "Immortal beauty of Troy" , ""The face the launched 1,000 ships"" , "Greek woman famed for beauty" .)