Article meant, initially, for the others (4)
I believe the answer is:
them
'the others' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'article meant initially' is the wordplay.
'article' becomes 'the' (the 'definite article' part of speech).
'initially' suggests taking the first letters.
The first letter of 'meant' is 'm'.
'the'+'m'='THEM'
'for' is the link.
(Other definitions for them that I've seen before include "... in another case, they" , "people objectively" , "Perhaps, the Opposition" , "(To/from) those people" , "Those people (as object)" .)