Wooden knife’s first placed beside meal (4)
I believe the answer is:
teak
'wooden' is the definition.
(teak is a type of wood)
'knife's first placed beside meal' is the wordplay.
'knife's first' becomes 'k' (1st letter of 'knife').
'placed beside' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'meal' becomes 'tea' (tea is a kind of meal).
'k' after 'tea' is 'TEAK'.
(Other definitions for teak that I've seen before include "A SE Asian hardwood" , "Strong heavy wood of an Asian tree" , "Take away with very hard wood" , "Hard durable timber" , "Type of tree" .)