At present, a terrible toady (5)
I believe the answer is:
today
'at present' is the definition.
('today' can be a synonym of 'at present')
'a terrible toady' is the wordplay.
'a terrible' is an anagram indicator.
'toady' is an anagram of 'TODAY'.
(Other definitions for today that I've seen before include "one of our papers, once" , "Presently" , "Modern times" , "12, 12" , "Current period of 24 hours" .)