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
David Chapman, executive director of UK Hospitality Cymru, said having to mothball rooms wasn't uncommon.
From BBC ● Dec. 26, 2024
Manolo Blahnik did a shoehorn, Isaac Mizrahi designed a mothball that’s a cube, so it didn’t roll, and I ran it at 30 pages with the title “Hey, Target: How About This?”
From New York Times ● Jul. 1, 2023
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
I may still need to get my megaphone out of mothballs after all.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 23, 2024
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
Entomology smells like mothballs and oil: a preservative that, Dr. Geffard explains, is called naphthalene.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
When the Toreros needed cold-weather clothing for a game at Dayton, Harbaugh cajoled the Chargers, where he spent part of his playing career, into donating some of their mothballed gear.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
Plans were approved, then mothballed, and then resurrected.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
Vivergo Fuels, which was owned by Associated British Foods and produced bioethanol, closed and Ensus's plant was mothballed.
From BBC ● Mar. 25, 2026
Taiwan is already “looking at restarting mothballed coal plants,” Knutson says.
From Barron's ● Mar. 19, 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
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
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
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
