The biological half-life or elimination half-life of a substance is the time it takes for a substance (for example a metabolite

Metabolite

Metabolites are the intermediates and products of metabolism. The term metabolite is usually restricted to small molecules. A primary metabolite is directly involved in normal growth, development, and reproduction. Alcohol is an example of a primary metabolite produced in large-scale by industrial...

, drug

Drug

A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage.In pharmacology, a...

, signalling molecule, radioactive nuclide

Nuclide

A nuclide is an atomic species characterized by the specific constitution of its nucleus, i.e., by its number of protons Z, its number of neutrons N, and its nuclear energy state....

, or other substance) to lose half of its pharmacologic, physiologic, or radiologic activity, as per the MeSH

Medical Subject Headings

Medical Subject Headings is a comprehensive controlled vocabulary for the purpose of indexing journal articles and books in the life sciences; it can also serve as a thesaurus that facilitates searching...

 definition. In a medical context, half-life may also describe the time it takes for the blood plasma

Blood plasma

Blood plasma is the straw-colored liquid component of blood in which the blood cells in whole blood are normally suspended. It makes up about 55% of the total blood volume. It is the intravascular fluid part of extracellular fluid...

 concentration of a substance to halve ("plasma half-life") its steady-state.