Now an awful toady (5)
I believe the answer is:
today
'now' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'an awful toady' is the wordplay.
'an awful' indicates anagramming the letters.
'toady' is an anagram of 'TODAY'.
(Other definitions for today that I've seen before include "one of our papers, once" , "Yesterday's tomorrow" , "12, 12" , "Modern times" , "The present time or age" .)