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
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 Truman, Harry S.
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
The September 1974 journal, dog-eared and smelling of pipe smoke and mothballs, included the first published reference to Morgan commissioning the timepiece.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 9, 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 room was filled with an intense smell of mothballs.
From "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri
Since then, Microsoft, Google and Meta have signed their own deals with mothballed nuclear-power plants or those slated to be shut down.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 24, 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
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
Vivergo Fuels, which was owned by Associated British Foods and produced bioethanol, closed and Ensus's plant was mothballed.
From BBC ● Mar. 25, 2026
The sweet, slightly chemical scent of gun oil; the raw wood of newly constructed shell crates; the mothballed odor of old bedspreads—he’s in the hotel.
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
However, the university is still looking at redundancies, course closures and mothballing projects in a bid to cut costs.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2025
“In some cases, it may be necessary to re-examine the timeframe and the process of decommissioning or mothballing of coal-fired power stations temporarily to address our electricity supply shortfall,” Ramaphosa wrote.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 24, 2023
