Answer press -- all of us are, in a way (2,2,4)
I believe the answer is:
as it were
'in a way' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'answer press all of us are' is the wordplay.
'answer' becomes 'a' (abbreviation eg in Q and A).
'press' becomes 'sit' (both can mean to weigh on).
'all of us are' becomes 'were' (contraction of 'we are').
'a'+'sit'+'were'='AS IT WERE'
(Other definitions for as it were that I've seen before include "In a manner of speaking" , "you may say" , "In sort of" , "Historically ungrammatical" , "So to speak" .)