Almost new, and ahead of time (6)
I believe the answer is:
nearly
'almost' is the definition.
('nearly' can be a synonym of 'almost')
'new and ahead of time' is the wordplay.
'new' becomes 'n'.
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'ahead of time' becomes 'early' (I've seen this before).
'n'+'early'='NEARLY'
(Other definitions for nearly that I've seen before include "Give out a bright light" , "More or less" , "Not entirely" , "approximately" , "parsimoniously" .)