mothball
Americannoun
-
mothballs
plural
verb (used with object)
-
mothballs,
present (3rd person singular)
-
mothballed,
past participle, past
-
mothballing
present participle
adjective
idioms
noun
-
Also called: camphor ball. a small ball of camphor or naphthalene used to repel clothes moths in stored clothing, blankets, etc
-
to postpone work on (a project, activity, etc)
verb
-
to prepare (a ship, aircraft, etc) for a long period of storage by sealing all openings with plastic to prevent corrosion
-
to take (a factory, plant, etc) out of operation but maintain it so that it can be used in the future
-
to postpone work on (a project, activity, etc)
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
mothballsimple
-
mothballssimple
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have mothballedperfect
-
has mothballedperfect
-
am mothballingprogressive
-
are mothballingprogressive
-
is mothballingprogressive
-
have been mothballingperfect progressive
-
has been mothballingperfect progressive
Past
-
mothballedsimple
-
had mothballedperfect
-
was mothballingprogressive
-
were mothballingprogressive
-
had been mothballingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mothball
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“It literally goes into mothball mode,” said Len Kientz, Evonik’s director of energy management in North America.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 10, 2026
At Pascagoula Hospital, the city’s only acute-care health facility, a wave of departures has left 80 unfilled openings for registered nurses, forcing administrators to mothball a third of its beds.
From New York Times ● Jan. 23, 2022
Also, the shipyard is home to a mothball fleet — many ships on the way to scrapping — which fluctuates in size.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 3, 2021
Briant has had to mothball the giant inflatable walk-through colon she used to send to events in tribal areas and gatherings of agricultural workers throughout Washington State.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 18, 2021
For example, many combat ships are being returned to active duty from the "mothball fleet" and many others can be put into service on very short notice.
From State of the Union Address by Harry S. Truman
After Warner was elected, she got sweet revenge when she took her purple Halston pantsuit out of mothballs and wore it proudly to a luncheon thrown for her by the Republican ladies.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 6, 2022
Growing up, restaurateur Andy Kalish associated two smells with Friday nights: his grandmother's chicken soup and mothballs in his grandfather's closet.
From Salon ● Apr. 16, 2022
“But honestly, once we were given the green light to come back, we came out of mothballs very quickly ... and then we just drove it to the finish line.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2021
Meanwhile, mechanics will take the aircraft that have been grounded nearly two years out of mothballs — making sure all the moving parts are lubricated and functioning correctly.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 18, 2020
The clothes smelled like wet mothballs and jasmine.
From "The Son of Neptune" by Rick Riordan
The approved buyer of the mothballed residential, hotel and retail project is a partnership led by Kali P. Chaudhuri, whose KPC Development Co. owns and builds commercial properties in California and India.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
The war could make it easier for Takaichi to reopen mothballed nuclear plants that were supplying 30% of the country’s electricity before the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
From Barron's ● May 14, 2026
Last spring, Neom mothballed the island, while staff at numerous fancy restaurants loaded Baccarat crystal glasses and blue crocodile-skin chairs into storage, former employees said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 6, 2026
Fountainhall Primary was mothballed - shut on a temporary basis - in 2025 but now the local authority is looking to begin the process to close its doors permanently.
From BBC ● Mar. 23, 2026
A boy’s cap hangs on the wall; at the back looms a massive wardrobe, mothballed shirts hung inside.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Ackman set his sights lower this time compared with 2024, when he initially aimed to raise $25 billion, then lowered the target to around $2 billion before mothballing the listing entirely.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
Goldman Sachs raised its second-quarter Brent crude forecast by $10 to $76 a barrel, as Iraq began mothballing some oil production.
From Barron's ● Mar. 4, 2026
Arcadium Lithium followed suit this month, announcing that it would be mothballing its Mt Cattlin mine in Western Australia, blaming low prices.
From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2024
Fifteen years ago, former Nebraska and Arizona State quarterback Sam Keller filed a class-action lawsuit that in 2013 resulted in Electronic Arts Sports mothballing its popular “College Football” video game.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 7, 2024
But in recent months, Goldman has signaled a partial retreat from those efforts by scrapping plans for a checking account broadly available to the public and mothballing its personal loan business.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 25, 2023
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
