Tentative article replaced by another in journal (7)
I believe the answer is:
dithery
'tentative' is the definition.
'article replaced by another in journal' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'article' could be 'the' (the 'definite article' part of speech) and 'the' is found within the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
(Other definitions for dithery that I've seen before include "Uncertain" , "shaking" , "Hesitating" , "Indecisive" , "Unsure" .)