Barely present recently (4,3)
I believe the answer is:
just now
'recently' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'barely present' is the wordplay.
'barely' becomes 'just' (synonyms).
'present' becomes 'now' (both can mean the current period).
'just'+'now'='JUST NOW'
(Other definitions for just now that I've seen before include "a little while ago" , "short time ago" , "A moment ago" , "Very recently" .)