as in dismantling
to stop using (something) while keeping it to be possibly used in the future
Many navy ships were mothballed after the war.
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Recent Examples of Synonyms for mothballing
dismantling
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The end of that conflict followed the people’s dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the reunification of Germany and finally the disintegration in 1991 of the Soviet Union.—
Arthur I. Cyr,
Chicago Tribune,
18 Feb. 2026 -
Last year, approximately three hundred and fifty-two thousand civil servants left their jobs, fulfilling one of the Administration’s stated goals of dismantling the government bureaucracy and demoralizing the federal workforce.—
Jonathan Blitzer,
New Yorker,
17 Feb. 2026
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“Mothballing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mothballing. Accessed 23 Feb. 2026.
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