jQuery offers $.inArray:
Note that inArray returns the index of the element found, so 0 indicates the element is the first in the array. -1 indicates the element was not found.
var categoriesPresent = ['word', 'word', 'specialword', 'word'];_x000D_
var categoriesNotPresent = ['word', 'word', 'word'];_x000D_
_x000D_
var foundPresent = $.inArray('specialword', categoriesPresent) > -1;_x000D_
var foundNotPresent = $.inArray('specialword', categoriesNotPresent) > -1;_x000D_
_x000D_
console.log(foundPresent, foundNotPresent); // true false<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>Edit 3.5 years later
$.inArray is effectively a wrapper for Array.prototype.indexOf in browsers that support it (almost all of them these days), while providing a shim in those that don't. It is essentially equivalent to adding a shim to Array.prototype, which is a more idiomatic/JSish way of doing things. MDN provides such code. These days I would take this option, rather than using the jQuery wrapper.
var categoriesPresent = ['word', 'word', 'specialword', 'word'];_x000D_
var categoriesNotPresent = ['word', 'word', 'word'];_x000D_
_x000D_
var foundPresent = categoriesPresent.indexOf('specialword') > -1;_x000D_
var foundNotPresent = categoriesNotPresent.indexOf('specialword') > -1;_x000D_
_x000D_
console.log(foundPresent, foundNotPresent); // true falseEdit another 3 years later
Gosh, 6.5 years?!
The best option for this in modern Javascript is Array.prototype.includes:
var found = categories.includes('specialword');
No comparisons and no confusing -1 results. It does what we want: it returns true or false. For older browsers it's polyfillable using the code at MDN.
var categoriesPresent = ['word', 'word', 'specialword', 'word'];_x000D_
var categoriesNotPresent = ['word', 'word', 'word'];_x000D_
_x000D_
var foundPresent = categoriesPresent.includes('specialword');_x000D_
var foundNotPresent = categoriesNotPresent.includes('specialword');_x000D_
_x000D_
console.log(foundPresent, foundNotPresent); // true false