Pale in a feminine way (5)
I believe the answer is:
ashen
'pale' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'in a feminine way' is the wordplay.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'a' becomes 'an'.
'feminine way' becomes 'she' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'an' placed around 'she' is 'ASHEN'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ashen that I've seen before include "may be pale with shock" , "Bloodless" , "Pale-faced" , "So vampire might appear" , "Having gone pale" .)