Strip of rank ham after days (6)
I believe the answer is:
demote
'strip of rank' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'ham after days' is the wordplay.
'ham' becomes 'emote' (I've seen this before).
'after' says to put letters next to each other.
'days' becomes 'd' (abbreviation for days).
'emote' after 'd' is 'DEMOTE'.
(Other definitions for demote that I've seen before include "Relegate" , "Move down in rank" , "Reduce in status" , "Put down in rank" , "Move to lower status" .)