Ring-leader almost throttling head of Mafia (5)
I believe the answer is:
chime
'ring' is the definition.
(eg a bell chimes or rings)
'leader almost throttling head of mafia' is the wordplay.
'leader' becomes 'chief ' (chief is a kind of leader).
'almost' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'throttling' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'head of mafia' becomes 'm' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'chief' with its final letter removed is 'chie'.
'chie' placed around 'm' is 'CHIME'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for chime that I've seen before include "Clang" , "(Bell) sound the hour" , "Ringing sound" , "(Of bells) ring" , "Agree (with); ring" .)