Step in front of empty net or grating (8)
I believe the answer is:
strident
'grating' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'step in front of empty net' is the wordplay.
'step' becomes 'stride' (stride is a kind of step**).
'in front of' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'empty' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'net' with its middle removed is 'nt'.
'stride'+'nt'='STRIDENT'
'or' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for strident that I've seen before include "Loud and harsh over tridents" , "Unpleasantly loud and harsh" , "making a lot of noise" , "Roaring" , "Grating - urgent" .)