Check if a string in a Pandas DataFrame column is in a list of strings

frame = pd.DataFrame({'a' : ['the cat is blue', 'the sky is green', 'the dog is black']})

frame
                  a
0   the cat is blue
1  the sky is green
2  the dog is black

The str.contains method accepts a regular expression pattern:

mylist = ['dog', 'cat', 'fish']
pattern = '|'.join(mylist)

pattern
'dog|cat|fish'

frame.a.str.contains(pattern)
0     True
1    False
2     True
Name: a, dtype: bool

Because regex patterns are supported, you can also embed flags:

frame = pd.DataFrame({'a' : ['Cat Mr. Nibbles is blue', 'the sky is green', 'the dog is black']})

frame
                     a
0  Cat Mr. Nibbles is blue
1         the sky is green
2         the dog is black

pattern = '|'.join([f'(?i){animal}' for animal in mylist])  # python 3.6+

pattern
'(?i)dog|(?i)cat|(?i)fish'
 
frame.a.str.contains(pattern)
0     True  # Because of the (?i) flag, 'Cat' is also matched to 'cat'
1    False
2     True