High-energy phosphate can mean one of two things:

* The phosphate-phosphate (phosphoanhydride/phosphoric anhydride/macroergic/phosphagen) bonds formed when compounds such as adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) are created.
* The compounds that contain these bonds, which include the nucleoside diphosphates and nucleoside triphosphates,