Can I use an if statement to see if a variable matches more than one value in Python? [duplicate]

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• How do I test multiple variables against a value? 14 answers

In Python when I want to check multiple values a variable could be, it usually looks something like this:

if (a == 1 or a == 2 or a == 3):

I have seen the range() function used with if statements, but I want this to work even for strings. Example:

if (a == 'a' or a == 'b' or a == 'c'):

Is there any way to shorthand these so they are not so long?