Without work, top referee painting club, perhaps (7)
I believe the answer is:
trefoil
'club perhaps' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'without work top referee painting' is the wordplay.
'without work' becomes 'tr' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'top' means to remove the first letter.
'referee' becomes 'ref' (synonyms).
'painting' becomes 'oil' (oil painting is a kind of painting).
'ref' with its first letter taken away is 'ef'.
'tr'+'ef'+'oil'='TREFOIL'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for trefoil that I've seen before include "Small clover-like plant" , "Three-leaved plant, eg clover" , "Plant with three leaves, like shamrock or clover" , "Three leaved plant like clover and shamrock" , "Leaf divided into three sections" .)