Varnish apparently secured in early part of year (5)
I believe the answer is:
japan
'varnish' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'apparently secured in early part of year' is the wordplay.
'apparently' becomes 'pa' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'secured in' is an insertion indicator.
'early part of year' becomes 'jan' (abbreviation for January).
'pa' going inside 'jan' is 'JAPAN'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for japan that I've seen before include "East Asian country" , "Glossy, black varnish; country" , "Far Eastern island country" , "Country in Far East" , "East Asian island nation" .)