Play absorbing district attorney at the present time (5)
I believe the answer is:
today
'at the present time' is the definition.
('today' can be a synonym of 'at the present time')
'play absorbing district attorney' is the wordplay.
'play' becomes 'toy' ('toy' can be a synonym of 'play').
'absorbing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'district attorney' becomes 'da' ('D.A.' can be a synonym of 'district attorney').
'toy' going around 'da' is 'TODAY'.
(Other definitions for today that I've seen before include "Yesterday's tomorrow" , "12, 12" , "one of our papers, once" , "Current period of 24 hours" , "The present time or age" .)