Most of us know of mothballs (one word) as those small balls used to repel moths from stored clothing, but did you know mothball is also a verb? It developed this sense just after World War II when ships deactivated by the domobilizing U.S. military were said to be “mothballed.” So the verb mothball means make inactive or put into storage.
Examples
The verb mothball peaked in the late 1940s, but it still appears occasionally—for example:
The Tennessee Valley Authority agreed Thursday to mothball 18 coal-fired boilers … [Wall Street Journal]
Developer Larry Silverstein has mothballed plans for a 1,270-foot Tower 2, which would have risen higher than the Empire State Building. [New York Daily News]
With the penultimate launch of the space shuttle expected sometime next week, only one mission will stand between the shuttle program and permanent mothballing. [NJ.com]
That last example interestingly uses mothballing as a gerund.
Although the verb mothball was originally an American term, the word now appears more often in non-U.S. publications. Here are a few examples:
A group of people opposed to mothballing the North Auckland rail line are expected to form a picket line … [New Zealand Herald]
The projects were then mothballed due to a lack of finance. [Guardian]
Reactors 1 and 2 have been permanently mothballed. [Irish Times]
