No, “smell” and “stale” do not technically rhyme.
Here’s why:
- “Smell” ends with the sound /ɛl (rhyming with words like “bell,” “cell,” and “sell”).
- “Stale” ends with the sound /eɪl (rhyming with words like “sale,” “tale,” and “pail”).
The vowel sounds are different: “smell” has the short “e” sound, while “stale” has the long “a” sound, which makes them not a perfect match in rhyme.
So, although they might seem somewhat similar, they don’t fully rhyme in terms of their phonetic endings.