Refined playing area before second half of July (7)
I believe the answer is:
courtly
'refined' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'playing area before second half of july' is the wordplay.
'playing area' becomes 'court' (court is a kind of playing area).
'before' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'second half of' suggests halving the letters (the back or second half of the word).
'july' halved is 'ly'.
'court'+'ly'='COURTLY'
(Other definitions for courtly that I've seen before include "Gracious" , "Elegant -- refined" , "Middle Ages code of conduct for couples -- Ely colour TV (anag)" .)