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
-
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:
Although Lloyd may not care to look at them, there are all sorts of fancy metrics that illustrate exactly how odd it is for Arizona to mothball the 3-pointer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 29, 2026
David Chapman, executive director of UK Hospitality Cymru, said having to mothball rooms wasn't uncommon.
From BBC ● Dec. 26, 2024
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
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
He suggested that Johnson use some well-known methods to get the bear to leave: mothballs, ammonia-soaked towels, bear spray.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 4, 2025
And it’s very possible that the fullback position, currently headed to the mothballs, will eventually make a comeback.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 25, 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
He wasn’t interested in anything that reeked of mothballs and dust.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 29, 2021
Sometimes the clothes smelled like a hospital, perhaps from being stored in mothballs.
From "How Dare the Sun Rise" by Sandra Uwiringiyimana
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
The Department for Business is expected to announce on Thursday that a site in Teesside, operated by Ensus, will restart operations after it was mothballed last year.
From BBC ● Mar. 25, 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
British chemical maker Ineos said last year it planned to shut two plants in Germany, after closing plants in the U.K. and Belgium and mothballing facilities in France and Spain.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
Parents celebrated a decision to halt the "mothballing" of any secondary school in the region in 2024.
From BBC ● Jun. 30, 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
And it would vindicate the Dodgers’ strategy of all but mothballing an elite starting pitcher for almost three weeks and then handing him the ball and asking him to win them the division series.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2025
But that era ended when Alcoa terminated the Intalco agreement before mothballing the facility in 2020.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 20, 2022
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.
