The first to relax and ridicule (5)
I believe the answer is:
tease
'ridicule' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'the first to relax' is the wordplay.
'first' suggests taking the first letters.
'to relax' becomes 'ease' (I've seen this before).
The first letter of 'the' is 't'.
't'+'ease'='TEASE'
'and' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for tease that I've seen before include "Ridicule" , "Gently rib" , "Kid" , "Josh" , "Deride" .)