Dance is almost pathetic after drink (5)
I believe the answer is:
rumba
'dance' is the definition.
(rumba is a kind of dance)
'almost pathetic after drink' is the wordplay.
'almost' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'pathetic' becomes 'bad'.
'after' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'drink' becomes 'rum' (rum is a kind of drink**).
'bad' with its last letter taken off is 'ba'.
'ba' put after 'rum' is 'RUMBA'.
'is' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for rumba that I've seen before include "number of steps" , "Strictly round" , "Burma (anag)" , "Caribbean dance" , "music one can dance to" .)