Section Semite coming into old Italian province (8)
I believe the answer is:
parabola
'section' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'semite coming into old italian province' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'semite' could be 'arab' (Arab is an example) and 'arab' is found in the answer.
'old' could be 'o' (common abbreviation eg in OE for Old English) and 'o' is found within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for parabola that I've seen before include "Conic section" , "arc" , "(Mathematical) curve" , "curved path" , "It looks like something may be thrown" .)