Nervous female, ahead of rebuke (7)
I believe the answer is:
fearful
'nervous' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'female ahead of rebuke' is the wordplay.
'female' becomes 'f' (abbreviation).
'ahead of' means one lot of letters go next to another (I've seen this in other clues).
'rebuke' becomes 'earful' (earful is a kind of rebuke).
'f'+'earful'='FEARFUL'
(Other definitions for fearful that I've seen before include "Timid" , "Timorous; terrible" , "wary" , "Apprehensive, worried" , "awful!" .)