People after ground spice, for example (8)
I believe the answer is:
specimen
'example' is the definition.
(I know this)
'people after ground spice' is the wordplay.
'people' becomes 'men' (men are people).
'after' says to put letters next to each other.
'ground' is an anagram indicator ('grind' the letters into a new form).
'spice' anagrammed gives 'speci'.
'men' put after 'speci' is 'SPECIMEN'.
'for' is the link.
(Other definitions for specimen that I've seen before include "Something used as an example" , "Example of type" , "Copy" , "Typical example - sample" , "Person critically" .)