Ridicule South African almost drained (6)
I believe the answer is:
satire
'ridicule' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'south african almost drained' is the wordplay.
'south african' becomes 'sa'.
'almost' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'drained' becomes 'tired' (tiring is a kind of draining).
'tired' with its final letter taken away is 'tire'.
'sa'+'tire'='SATIRE'
(Other definitions for satire that I've seen before include "Humerous literary ridicule" , "Jonathan Swift's forte?" , "Pointed humour" , "Witty language used to convey insults or scorn" , "Mocking humour" .)