More ancient ring left with the German (5)
I believe the answer is:
older
'more ancient' is the definition.
('old' can be similar in meaning to 'ancient')
'ring left with the german' is the wordplay.
'ring' becomes 'O' (letter resembling a ring).
'left' becomes 'l' (common abbreviation).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'the german' becomes 'der' ('the' in German).
'o'+'l'+'der'='OLDER'
(Other definitions for older that I've seen before include "More advanced in point of time" , "more history" , "More ancient" , "Increasingly mature" , "Less young" .)