Need a way to deactivate a choice in a custom field

We have situations where we don't want to replace with another choice and don't want to delete the value because we want the information to accurate for historical reporting purposes, but we also don't want people to make a selection from the list any longer. Is there a way to "deactivate" a value from a custom field list so that it is preserved in all releases that currently use it but can no longer be selected?