How to check if a string is equal to a string in a list

[Tom Jackson]

I'm trying to make a game of "ghost", but I can't seem to check the dictionary file correctly to see if the word is located in it. How can I check to see if the variable created by the players is equal to a string in a list?
The wordcheck function is what is not working.

 
def load_words():
    '''
    Loads the words from 'words.txt' into a list,
    and returns the list.  'words.txt' must be located
    in the same directory as this program.
    '''
    wordlist = []
    inf = open('words.txt', 'r')
    for line in inf:
        w = line.strip().upper()
        wordlist.append(w)
    inf.close()
    return wordlist
 
 
def ghost():
    wordlist = load_words()
    print (len(wordlist),"words were loaded.")
    wd=''
    n=0
    while n<3:
        if n%2 ==0:
            let = input("player 1 input a letter:")
            wd = wd + str(let[0].lower())
            n = n+1
        else:
            let = input("player 2 input a letter:")
            wd = wd + str(let[0].lower())
            n = n+1
 
    while n>=3:
        if n%2 ==0:
            let = input("player 1 input a letter:")
            wd = wd + str(let[0].lower())
            wordcheck(wd)
            n = n+1
            print(wd)
        else:
            let = input("player 2 input a letter:")
            wd = wd + str(let[0].lower())
            wordcheck(wd)
            n = n+1
            print(wd)
 
def wordcheck(wordc):
    wordlist = load_words()
    for word in wordlist:
        count = word.count(wordc)
        if count ==1:
            print("lose")
        if wordc == word:
            print("lose")
ghost()
 

[bvdet]

A few suggestions:
Make sure the case of the words in the word list and the case of the word being checked is the same (all upper or all lower case).
There is no need to load the word list every time you check a word. You should only load the word list once.
To test for membership, use the in operator:

>>> 'word' in ['car', 'wordy', 'bell']
False
>>> 'wordy' in ['car', 'wordy', 'bell']
True
>>> 

Return True or False from wordcheck(). Add an if/else block where you are calling wordcheck(), and take some action depending on the result:

if wordcheck(word):
    print "%s is in the word list" % (word)
else:
    print "%s is not in the word list" % (word)