How can I check if a string is in an array without iterating over the elements?

Question

Is there a way of checking if a string exists in an array of strings - without iterating through the array?

For example, given the script below, how I can correctly impl

Answer 1

array=('hello' 'world' 'my' 'name' 'is' 'perseus')
regex="^($(IFS=\|; echo "${array[*]}"))$"

test='henry'
[[ $test =~ $regex ]] && echo "found" || echo "not found"