How to Use assay in a Sentence

assay

1 of 2 verb
  • They assayed the gold to determine its purity.
  • Is this a riddle assayed by a fairy-tale creature?
    — Jayson Greene, Pitchfork, 8 May 2026
  • By the time the offline assay confirmed what the cells were doing, hours had passed, and the batch was unrecoverable.
    — Hamid Noori, Forbes.com, 28 May 2026
  • After giving the foragers a day to recover from their treatments, the researchers assayed pathogen loads across all of the ants in the colony.
    — Diana Gitig, Ars Technica, 26 Nov. 2018
  • But interoperability—from ad-blocking to switching app stores—is a means by which customers can assay real counteroffers.
    — The Economist, 6 June 2019
  • With spectrometers for assaying elements in the regolith, the briefcase-size rover hopes to make the most of the 14-Earth-day lunar day.
    — Sanjay Kumar, Science | AAAS, 7 Sep. 2019
  • An obscure testing lab was hired to assay the metal because using the leading firm in the field would supposedly alert the Canadian nickel cartel.
    — Walter Shapiro, The New Republic, 24 Mar. 2022
  • Then the curtains will close on Morgan’s particular view of this famously inscrutable family, assayed by so many indelible actors.
    — Lisa Rosen, Los Angeles Times, 27 Nov. 2023
  • At the Pantages, the role is assayed by Adrianna Hicks, an ensemble player in the Broadway revival who hasn’t quite made the leap to headliner.
    — Charles McNulty, latimes.com, 30 May 2018
  • One challenge was to precisely assay the uranium isotopes, which could shed light on the material's source; on at least one measurement, COE scientists came out tops.
    — Richard Stone, Science | AAAS, 31 Aug. 2017
  • So, the authors ran a series of enzymatic assays to determine how much different red wine flavonoids inhibited ALDH2.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 20 Nov. 2023
  • This is a golden opportunity to do the standard shadow primary work of defining yourself and defining your opponent, creating some clear terms by which voters can easily assay the differences between your campaign and Trump’s.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 3 Aug. 2023
  • David Lord and a team at Sandia National Laboratories have been working on finding and developing methods for analyzing oils from different fields to quickly assay their chemical constituents.
    — Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic, 5 Feb. 2018

assay

2 of 2 noun
  • The show assays two very different types of female power, and does so with both edge and heart.
    — Daniel D'addario, Time, 30 May 2018
  • Microarrays for running assays on large numbers of genes at once were brand-new.
    — Quanta Magazine, 6 June 2017
  • Microarrays for running assays on large numbers of genes at once were brand-new.
    — Esther Landhuis, Scientific American, 12 June 2017
  • This assay should be able to be readily adapted to other pathogens.
    — Judy Stone, Forbes, 28 Jan. 2022
  • It was supposed to do general chemistry assays and blood cell counts, etc.
    — Recode Staff, Recode, 3 June 2018
  • This is a case when mouse assays are helpful for knowing what deserves a closer look but far from the last word on a topic.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 22 Jan. 2020
  • The assay includes a swab, a vial of extraction solution and a cassette the size of a small flash drive.
    — Emma Court, Bloomberg.com, 13 Oct. 2020
  • That [fourth case]was not a TaqPath assay, so there was no reason for the lab to even question it.
    — Joe Carlson, Star Tribune, 17 Jan. 2021
  • Tests known as assay kits are made up of several vials of chemical solutions.
    — Ivan Watson, CNN, 12 Mar. 2020
  • This test, called a lateral flow assay, can be used in a doctor’s office, with results in minutes.
    — Amber Dance, Discover Magazine, 5 May 2020
  • What the blood assays for the tau protein, the main component of tangles in the brain, tell us is little less certain.
    — The Conversation, oregonlive.com, 10 Aug. 2019
  • Other gene assays exist, but this one is the most widely used in the United States.
    — Denise Grady, New York Times, 3 June 2018
  • Bars sealed with an assay card with a serial number are your best assurance of weight and purity.
    — Sharon Wu, USA Today, 15 Apr. 2026
  • There are a lot of drugs that target the adrenaline system, so the team tested similar drugs in the same assay.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 2 Sep. 2017
  • This is useful since the extraction step takes extra time and the reagents used in the assay are currently in short supply.
    — Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 18 Aug. 2020
  • Or, a healthcare provider may use an immunofluorescence assay.
    — Health Editorial Team, Health, 21 Apr. 2023
  • The assay can run 92 samples in about three hours, although the turnaround time depends on the lab conducting the test.
    — Tanya Lewis, Scientific American, 20 Aug. 2020
  • Consider each step of how your lab works to quickly develop a new diagnostic assay.
    — Sylvain Gariel, Forbes, 15 Aug. 2022
  • Only three labs nationwide use modern assays to screen for HIV.
    — Richard Stone, Science | AAAS, 24 June 2019
  • Replacing a large-scale drug assay with a computational query saves millions of dollars each time.
    — Quanta Magazine, 2 Nov. 2021
  • The participants had to have first shown symptoms within the past week and to have tested positive in a rapid antigen assay.
    — Simon Makin, Scientific American, 8 Feb. 2023
  • In time, Guccione said, the test could be used alongside other assays to reveal more about how T cells protect and for how long.
    — Melissa Healy, Anchorage Daily News, 20 Mar. 2023
  • To combat that issue, the swabs Rubin used in the station-sweeping assay are double-headed.
    — Shannon Hall, Scientific American, 11 Mar. 2021
  • Several chemical assays failed to identify any poison; granted, the methods of the day were not up to the task.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 20 Mar. 2023
  • The country tests widely for the virus—thanks in part to that first assay, developed in Drosten’s lab—and has managed to keep case numbers low.
    — Kai Kupferschmidt, Science | AAAS, 28 Apr. 2020
  • Testing whether the assay can be used for screening will take longer, and will involve learning how to test for levels of synuclein in blood, skin, or on nasal swabs.
    — Matthew Herper, STAT, 12 Apr. 2023
  • Birx had said that antigen tests could be used as first-pass screening tools that would be confirmed with follow-up PCR assays.
    — Jim Daley, Scientific American, 7 May 2020
  • The PanSeer assay is very new and strictly in the exploration phase, the researchers emphasize.
    — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 24 July 2020
  • His team is trying to develop an assay that could be used to test for variant viruses in wastewater from community sewage systems.
    — Helen Branswell, STAT, 31 Dec. 2020
  • So, as long as your tests involve one of the assays that Finch can handle, then there’s an additional step that can be performed by the system.
    — ArsTechnica, 19 May 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'assay.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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