Notice southern girl wearing ring (9)
I believe the answer is:
dismissal
'notice' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'southern girl wearing ring' is the wordplay.
'southern' becomes 's' (abbreviation).
'girl' becomes 'miss' ('miss' can be a synonym of 'girl'**).
'wearing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'ring' becomes 'dial' (I've seen this before).
's'+'miss'='smiss'
'smiss' inserted inside 'dial' is 'DISMISSAL'.
(Other definitions for dismissal that I've seen before include "Termination of employment" , "Notice" , "Rejection" , "Process of being sent away" , "removal from office" .)