Hope for cryptic praise (6)
I believe the answer is:
aspire
'hope for' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'cryptic praise' is the wordplay.
'cryptic' indicates anagramming the letters (a cryptic or obscure order of the letters).
'praise' anagrammed gives 'ASPIRE'.
(Other definitions for aspire that I've seen before include "Hanker" , "Have an ambitious plan or a lofty goal" , "Aim at high things" , "Earnestly desire (to achieve something)" , "rise to a great height" .)