All-embracing need to leave brothel to ladies primarily in charge (8)
I believe the answer is:
catholic
'all-embracing' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'need to leave brothel to ladies primarily in charge' is the wordplay.
'need' becomes 'use'.
'to leave' indicates named letters should be taken away.
'brothel' becomes 'cathouse' ('cathouse' can be a synonym of 'brothel').
'to ladies primarily' becomes 'l' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in charge' becomes 'ic'.
'cathouse' with 'use' removed is 'catho'.
'catho'+'l'+'ic'='CATHOLIC'
(Other definitions for catholic that I've seen before include "Showing widespread sympathy" , "Chat Clio up to be Roman religion" , "Chat Clio up to be universal" , "Broad" , "Universal (church)" .)