my $text = "This is a test for the word blue more things blue and then some very large text with a lot of things blue and done"; my @words = do { local $_ = $text; split; }; my $WANT = qr/\bblue\b/i; my @wants = grep { $words[$_] =~ $WANT } 0 .. $#words; for (@wants) { my $first = ($_ - 5 < 0) ? 0 : $_ - 5; my $last = ($_ + 5 > $#words) ? $#words : $_ + 5; print join( ' ', @words[$first .. $last]), $/; } __END__ a test for the word blue more things blue and then the word blue more things blue and then some very large with a lot of things blue and done