Abandon middle of hot capital (5)
I believe the answer is:
quito
'capital' is the definition.
(Quito is an example)
'abandon middle of hot' is the wordplay.
'abandon' becomes 'quit' (quitting is a kind of abandoning).
'middle of' means to look at the middle letters.
The middle of 'hot' is 'o'.
'quit'+'o'='QUITO'
(Other definitions for quito that I've seen before include "S America" , "Ecuadorian capital" , "Capital of Ecuador" , "City" .)