Range1:
A1: apple
B1: banana
C1: carrot

Range2:
A2:fruit
B2: fruit
C2: vegetable

A3: Granny Smith Apple

Range 1 and Range 2 are always the same size, but much larger in
reality.

Here's the "formula" I want to create in A4:

If A3 contains 'apple (the first entry in range1), then return 'Fruit'
(the first entry in range2), if A3 contains 'banana' (the 2nd entry of
range1) then return 'Fruit' (the 2nd entry of range2), if a3 contains
'carrot' (the 3rd entry of range1) then return 'vegettable' (the 3rd
entry of range2), otherwise return 'blah'

I don't just want to write this with simple if then statements because
Range1 and Range2 are in practice much larger.  This would be easy to
do with Match and Index if A3 exactly matched an entry in Range 1.  But
it might not. But A3 only has to CONTAIN one of the entries in Range1.

Hope that makes sense...

Excel@ShoenfeltConsulting.com