Pinching an article on paper (5)
I believe the answer is:
theft
'pinching' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'an article on paper' is the wordplay.
'an article' becomes 'the' (the 'definite article' part of speech).
'on' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'paper' becomes 'ft'.
'the'+'ft'='THEFT'
(Other definitions for theft that I've seen before include "A 19" , "1 across" , "heavy crime" , "Dishonest appropriation" , "Misappropriation" .)