Place where a long tooth shortened, by the way (6)
I believe the answer is:
status
'place' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'a long tooth shortened by the way' is the wordplay.
'long tooth' becomes 'tusk' (I've seen this before).
'shortened' means to remove the last letter.
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'the way' becomes 'st'.
'a'+'tusk'='atusk'
'atusk' with its final letter taken off is 'atus'.
'atus' put after 'st' is 'STATUS'.
'where' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for status that I've seen before include "Social ranking" , "Importance (in society?)" , "and 9: Existing state of affairs" , "Position in organisation or in society" , "Position in society etc" .)