#! perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

my @sample1 = qw/  a  b  c  d /;
my @sample2 = qw/  1  2  3  4 /;
my @sample3 = qw/ x1 x2 x3 x4 /;
my @big     = (\@sample1, \@sample2, \@sample3);    # <-- Note: use references here!

print "Original big array:\n",  Dumper(@big),     "\n";

my $deleted_ele = 'x3';
remove(\@big, $deleted_ele);

print "Resultant big array:\n", Dumper(@big),     "\n";
print "Deleted element: $deleted_ele\n";
print "Modified sample1:\n",    Dumper(@sample1), "\n";
print "Modified sample2:\n",    Dumper(@sample2), "\n";
print "Modified sample3:\n",    Dumper(@sample3);

sub remove
{
    my ($array, $to_delete) = @_;

    for my $i (0 .. @$array - 1)
    {
        for my $j (0 .. @{$array->[$i]} - 1)
        {
            if ($array->[$i][$j] eq $to_delete)
            {
                splice @$array[$_], $j, 1 for 0 .. @$array - 1;    # <-- Can't use delete here
                return;
            }
        }
    }
}