Woman took it to be important (5)
I believe the answer is:
vital
'important' is the definition.
(I know that important can be written as vital)
'woman took it to' is the wordplay.
'woman' becomes 'Vi' (short for Violet).
'took' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'it' becomes ''t' (abbreviation. e.g. in 'tis).
'to' becomes 'al' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'vi'+'t'+'al'='VITAL'
'be' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for vital that I've seen before include "Urgently needed or absolutely necessary" , "Of the greatest importance" , "alive" , "Of key importance" , "Crucially important, essential" .)