Support for the paper (8)
I believe the answer is:
standard
'paper' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'support for' is the wordplay.
'support' becomes 'stand' (stand is a kind of support).
'for' becomes 'ard' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'stand'+'ard'='STANDARD'
'the' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for standard that I've seen before include "Normal quality" , "Flag; criterion" , "Flying colours" , "Established or accepted model" , "Normal; flag" .)