You should consider using a hash for storage instead of an array, if the hash is primarily for lookups. Or convert your array into a hash for the lookup:

my @array = qw/ bcd efg hij klm /;
my %hash = map { $_, 1 } @array;
my $query = 'abc';

if (exists $hash{ $query }) {
    print "'$query' is in the hash...\n";
}
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