How to search for a string in an arraylist

Loop through your list and do a contains or startswith.

ArrayList<String> resList = new ArrayList<String>();
String searchString = "bea";

for (String curVal : list){
  if (curVal.contains(searchString)){
    resList.add(curVal);
  }
}

You can wrap that in a method. The contains checks if its in the list. You could also go for startswith.

 List <String> list = new ArrayList();  
           list.add("behold"); 
           list.add("bend"); 
           list.add("bet"); 
           list.add("bear"); 
           list.add("beat"); 
           list.add("become"); 
           list.add("begin");

           List <String> listClone = new ArrayList<String>(); 
           for (String string : list) {
               if(string.matches("(?i)(bea).*")){
                   listClone.add(string);
               }
           }
        System.out.println(listClone);