Appear finished when you briefly inspect (4,4)
I believe the answer is:
look over
'inspect' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'appear finished when you briefly' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'appear' could be 'look' (synonyms) and 'look' is present in the answer.
'finished' could be 'over' (over can mean finished or ended) and 'over' is located in the answer.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for look over that I've seen before include "Inspect" , "Read through briefly" .)