How to Use mothball in a Sentence

mothball

1 of 2 noun
  • The smell is the same smell of new shoes, belt leather, mothballs.
    — Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 13 July 2022
  • To prevent them, many enlist the help of mothballs.
    — Rae Ford, Martha Stewart, 24 May 2026
  • Now, think about what happens if mothballs are used in the garden, out in the open air.
    — Samantha Johnson, Martha Stewart, 9 May 2026
  • Now, think about what happens if mothballs are used in the garden, out in the open air.
    — Samantha Johnson, Martha Stewart, 9 May 2026
  • And Wright came out of mothballs, with nine carries for 28 yards.
    — Barry Jackson, Miami Herald, 26 Oct. 2025
  • Can the mothballs in your closet keep mice away, for example?
    — Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 1 Jan. 2026
  • Unfortunately, the mere prospect of the search is enough to evoke the smell of mothballs.
    — Zoe Settle, ELLE Decor, 15 May 2011
  • Skip the mothballs, which smell dreadful and are also toxic, and opt for cedar or lavender.
    — Jolie Kerr, Town & Country, 24 Mar. 2017
  • And skunks can remove mothballs from their den by rolling them into the yard where dogs can eat them, says Fyffe.
    — Felicia Feaster, Martha Stewart, 20 June 2026
  • What about preventing the disease by hanging mothballs around your neck?
    — Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 5 May 2020
  • In the past, mothballs have also been used as a bee deterrent, but experts now caution against it.
    — Meghan Holmes, Treehugger, 8 May 2023
  • The air was thick with the smell of mothballs, used to protect specimens against insect damage.
    — National Geographic, 23 Apr. 2018
  • Brent Barry, taken out of mothballs, was solid.
    — Barry Jackson, Miami Herald, 18 May 2026
  • Each chamber housed different particles, such as pet hair, mothballs, and smoke.
    — Lacey Muinos, Verywell Health, 14 Apr. 2023
  • Cat repellents and mothballs are an effective way to keep peacocks out of gardens.
    — Don Sweeney, Sacbee.com, 21 Apr. 2026
  • His shirt reeked of the flowery-formaldehyde tartness of mothballs pickling dress pockets in a closet.
    — Literary Hub, 3 June 2026
  • While standing outside, an officer noticed the smell of decay and saw packets of mothballs at the doors.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 25 Sep. 2019
  • Keep mothballs out of reach of children and pets, avoid placing them in open-air situations, and wash your hands after handling them.
    — Rae Ford, Martha Stewart, 24 May 2026
  • Only use mothballs as intended.
    — Rae Ford, Martha Stewart, 24 May 2026
  • Be aware that mothballs are insecticides and should be used with care, according to the label instructions.
    — Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 25 Jan. 2026
  • The board may be able to seek an injunction to compel the neighbor to stop using mothballs, another slow avenue to venture down.
    — Ronda Kaysen, New York Times, 28 Oct. 2017
  • The seller’s broker explained that a gentleman who lives on the floor uses mothballs and the building is trying to do something about the odor.
    — Ronda Kaysen, New York Times, 28 Oct. 2017
  • One is a bond that resembles a mothball, called aromatic carbon, while the other resembles grease and is called aliphatic.
    — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 28 June 2018
  • The ships were put back into mothballs after the end of the Cold War, with some becoming floating museums.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 18 May 2017
  • Sold in the form of small, solid pebbles, mothballs are a pesticide that's typically naphthalene- or paradichlorobenzene-based.
    — Rae Ford, Martha Stewart, 24 May 2026
  • In the meantime, showrunners have been busy putting their projects in mothballs (to resume once the strike is over) and figuring out how to pay their teams as their deal funding is halted.
    — Michael Schneider, Variety, 27 May 2023
  • Before taking out a camper trailer or RV, be sure to remove any rat poison, mothballs or antifreeze in the toilets.
    — oregonlive, 31 Aug. 2019
  • Bailey recorded touchbacks on all seven of his kickoffs, keeping speedy return man Steven Sims in mothballs.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 7 Oct. 2019
  • Since mothballs are proven to be ineffective (and harmful), here are some safer alternatives to consider.
    — Rae Ford, Martha Stewart, 25 Jan. 2026
  • Naphthalene, found in mothballs and products alike, can destroy red blood cells and has been proven to cause cancer in animals but has not yet been proven to cause cancer in humans.
    — Lindsey Campbell, House Beautiful, 30 July 2014

mothball

2 of 2 verb
  • Many navy ships were mothballed after the war.
  • The central bank gets mothballed.
    — Shawn Tully, Fortune, 8 Oct. 2025
  • Armies shrank, tanks were mothballed and money for defence dried up.
    — The Economist, 2 Mar. 2020
  • The planes were mothballed when longer versions of the aircraft came into service.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 28 Mar. 2018
  • While some ships could spring back into service quickly, others may be mothballed for months.
    — Fran Golden, Travel + Leisure, 7 Apr. 2020
  • All this in a country that plans to mothball its nuclear power stations by next year.
    — Lenora Chu, The Christian Science Monitor, 8 Nov. 2021
  • The central bank and the peso should be mothballed and moved into a museum.
    — Steve H. Hanke and John Greenwood, WSJ, 26 Sep. 2018
  • If the rains return, the expensive new water plants could end up being mothballed.
    — The Economist, 15 Feb. 2018
  • So airlines began buying the smaller planes and mothballing their bigger ones.
    — Robert Wall, WSJ, 29 Dec. 2018
  • The government plans to hold onto the property, but mothball it.
    — J.k. Dineen, SFChronicle.com, 17 July 2019
  • Sound stages mothballed since last spring are poised to reopen, welcoming back thousands of actors and film crew members.
    — Meg James, Los Angeles Times, 10 Nov. 2023
  • But borough officials bristle at any mention of mothballing or closing the port or even stopping work on the dock.
    — Zaz Hollander, Anchorage Daily News, 18 Dec. 2017
  • Trump initially agreed that the agency was unnecessary and mothballed it in his first budget plan last year.
    — Annie Linskey, BostonGlobe.com, 5 Mar. 2018
  • The old, inefficient plants could be mothballed, and air pollution would decrease.
    — Neil Irwin, New York Times, 14 Oct. 2017
  • When the program was canceled, those vehicles, from mock-ups to nearly flight ready articles, were mothballed.
    — Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 10 July 2017
  • Those grand buildings were mothballed until better times arrived—and thank goodness, too, says Lena Hoschek.
    — Mark Ellwood, Condé Nast Traveler, 29 June 2019
  • The measure passed the House each time but was first blocked in the Senate and later mothballed after a roll call vote in that chamber.
    — Politifact Staff Writer, Dallas News, 17 Apr. 2023
  • On the smartphone side, iPhone 5 will also be mothballed by the new operating system.
    — John Patrick Pullen, Fortune, 18 Sep. 2017
  • That romance of high-end European rail travel, mothballed for decades, is having a major comeback.
    — Klara Glowczewska, Town & Country, 2 Mar. 2023
  • New deals on hold In response to the strike, studios have mothballed deals with creators, Deadline reported.
    — Irina Ivanova, CBS News, 9 May 2023
  • But the program was scrapped during World War II and the prototypes mothballed.
    — Andrea Simakis, cleveland, 21 Oct. 2019
  • The company began construction twice on the development, but now has mothballed that project.
    — George Avalos, Mercury News, 16 Jan. 2026
  • Still, the ships need expensive upgrades to stay current, and the Navy has repeatedly proposed mothballing them to pay for new ships.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 24 May 2017
  • Miller had taken to toying with the addition in spring training in recent years, only to essentially mothball the pitch.
    — Jeff Sanders, San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 Apr. 2026
  • Oregon State mothballed the program for nearly two decades before restoring it in 2004.
    — Ndaschel, oregonlive, 26 Jan. 2023
  • But with the series mothballed for more than a year prior to being officially axed, Meloni has not been resting on his laurels.
    — Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, 8 June 2026
  • Turner said parking lots at shopping malls — whether the mall is still in use or mothballed — could provide neighborhood parking and pickup spots for park-and-ride buses.
    — Bill Shaikin, Los Angeles Times, 5 Oct. 2023
  • Malliotakis should fix this catastrophe by mothballing the welcome mat that de Blasio rolled out for America’s street dwellers.
    — Deroy Murdock, National Review, 8 Sep. 2017
  • To begin with, North Korea’s nuclear program dwarfs the program that Tehran had and agreed to mothball.
    — Tracy Wilkinson, latimes.com, 8 June 2018
  • Crude’s collapse since mid-2014 only added to his problems as earnings across the industry slumped, projects were mothballed and debts soared.
    — Rakteem Katakey, Houston Chronicle, 31 Oct. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mothball.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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