Analyte

An analyte is a substance or chemical constituent that is determined in an analytical procedure, such as a titration. For instance, in an immunoassay, the analyte may be the ligand or the binder, while in blood glucose testing, the analyte is glucose. In medicine, analyte often refers to the type of test being run on a patient, as the test is usually determining a chemical substance in the human body.

An analyte (in clinical chemistry preferentially referred to as component) itself cannot be measured, but a measurable property of the analyte can. For instance, one cannot measure a table (analyte-component) but, the height, width, etc. of a table can be measured. Likewise, one cannot measure glucose but can measure the glucose concentration. In this example "glucose" is the component and "concentration" is the kind-of-property. In laboratory and layman jargon the "property" is often left out provided the omission does not lead to an ambiguity of what property is measured.