Object when the top is removed from very small piece (7)
I believe the answer is:
article
'object when' is the definition.
'article' can be an answer for 'object' (I've seen this before). I'm not sure about the 'when' bit.
'the top is removed from very small piece' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found in the answer.
'from' could be 'e' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'e' is present in the answer.
'piece' could be 'r' (abbreviation for Rook) and 'r' is present in the answer.
'top' could be 'ai' (resembles A1, term for excellent) and 'ai' is located in the leftover letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for article that I've seen before include "Newspaper item" , "Object and newspaper story" , "What journalist writes" , "Piece of journalism" , "Object - piece of writing" .)