Assign a list to a dropdown ?

Assign a list to a dropdown ?

In a form I have
 -a text field (for example: "apple, orange, cherries"). 
and 
 -a dropdown with 3 values (1, 2, 3) 
 
Now, I convert the text into a list and I want to assign the values of to the list to the dropdown.
("apple" instead of 1, "orange"  instead of 2...)
 
Is it possible?
Or dropdown accepts as values only those of a form or the default definition?