Live Free Or Die

terms = { 'price'  'cents'  'govern'  'billion'  'company'  'state'  'economy'  'stock' };
ids   = num2cell(1:length(terms));
dict  = reshape({terms{:};ids{:}},2,[]);
dict  = struct(dict{:});

dict.('cents')  % my two cents!

dict = java.util.Hashtable;
dict.put('key',[1 2 3]);
dict.get('key')
dict.containsKey('key')