Private meal doesn't start (5)
I believe the answer is:
inner
'private' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'meal doesn't start' is the wordplay.
'meal' becomes 'dinner' (dinner is a kind of meal).
'doesn't start' means to remove the first letter.
'dinner' with its first letter taken off is 'INNER'.
(Other definitions for inner that I've seen before include "- - sanctum" , "Bull's penned in by this" , "Not a bad shot" , "Located or occurring closer to a centre" , "Very private room" .)