Puncture made by small parasite (5)
I believe the answer is:
stick
'puncture' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'by small parasite' is the wordplay.
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'small' becomes 's' (abbreviation - e.g. clothes size).
'parasite' becomes 'tick' (I've seen this before).
's' next to 'tick' is 'STICK'.
'made' is the link.
(Other definitions for stick that I've seen before include "School punishment once" , "heavy criticism" , "Adhere - cane" , "Baton; gum" , "See 2" .)