The regular expression: (?-imsx:CAT[2-9]*$) matches as follows: NODE EXPLANATION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (?-imsx: group, but do not capture (case-sensitive) (with ^ and $ matching normally) (with . not matching \n) (matching whitespace and # normally): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CAT 'CAT' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [2-9]* any character of: '2' to '9' (0 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- $ before an optional \n, and the end of the string ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of grouping ----------------------------------------------------------------------