Something hard for the butcher to take in hand? (5)
I believe the answer is:
steel
'something hard' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.
'the butcher to take in hand?' is the wordplay.
'the' becomes 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects).
'butcher' becomes 'see' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'to take in' is an insertion indicator.
'hand?' becomes 'L' (abbreviation for left, as in the left-hand side).
't' placed within 'see' is 'stee'.
'stee'+'l'='STEEL'
'for' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for steel that I've seen before include "Form of iron" , "May be cold" , "Make hard and unfeeling" , "Hard, strong, grey alloy" , "nerve" .)