the.com/mothball
A chemical pause button you can smell from three rooms away.
means To put something out of use but keep it preserved for possible later revival, or the small ball of pungent chemical used to keep moths from eating stored clothes.
from A plain compound of 'moth' and 'ball,' naming the little balls of naphthalene (and earlier camphor) tucked into wardrobes to repel cloth-eating moth larvae. The figurative sense — to 'mothball' a ship, factory, or plan, setting it aside in preserved limbo — grew from the image of storing away woolens for the off-season, and became especially common for laid-up naval vessels.
- sublimation act
- Goes solid to gas, skipping liquid entirely
- toxic fumes
- Naphthalene vapor can damage red blood cells
- navy slang
- Decommissioned warships are stored in mothball fleets
- old recipe
- Originally pure naphthalene, distilled from coal tar
- moth myth
- Repels adult moths, not the larvae that eat clothes
paradichlorobenzene — primary chemical used in traditional mothballs since the 1940s, gradually replaced due to toxicity concerns
naphthalene mothballs — older formulation used until banned in many countries in the 1990s due to health risks