The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Recent \Re"cent\ (r[=e]"sent), a. [L. recens, -entis: cf. F.
   r['e]cent.]
   1. Of late origin, existence, or occurrence; lately come; not
      of remote date, antiquated style, or the like; not already
      known, familiar, worn out, trite, etc.; fresh; novel; new;
      modern; as, recent news.
      [1913 Webster]

            The ancients were of opinion, that a considerable
            portion of that country [Egypt] was recent, and
            formed out of the mud discharged into the
            neighboring sea by the Nile.          --Woodward.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. (Geol.) Of or pertaining to the present or existing epoch;
      as, recent shells.
      [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

recent
    adj 1: new; "recent graduates"; "a recent addition to the
           house"; "recent buds on the apple trees"
    2: of the immediate past or just previous to the present time;
       "a late development"; "their late quarrel"; "his recent trip
       to Africa"; "in recent months"; "a recent issue of the
       journal" [syn: late(a), recent]
    n 1: approximately the last 10,000 years [syn: Holocene,
         Holocene epoch, Recent, Recent epoch]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

36 Moby Thesaurus words for "recent":
   ancient, brand-new, current, early, erstwhile, fore, former, fresh,
   immemorial, just out, late, later, latest, latter, modern,
   modernistic, neoteric, new, new-fashioned, newfangled, newly come,
   novel, of yesterday, old, olden, once, onetime, past, prehistoric,
   previous, primeval, primitive, prior, quondam, sometime, then