At first, compliment on the quality (9)
I believe the answer is:
attribute
'quality' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'at first compliment on the' is the wordplay.
'at first' becomes 'a' (tst letter of 'at').
'compliment' becomes 'tribute' (I've seen this before).
'on' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'the' becomes 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects).
'tribute' after 't' is 'ttribute'.
'a'+'ttribute'='ATTRIBUTE'
(Other definitions for attribute that I've seen before include "Credit - property" , "Ascribe (to a cause)" , "Ascribe, impute" , "Impute - quality" , "Assign" .)