use strict;

my @swearwords = qw/bad worse ugly/;

my $text='This is a bad sentence with some ugly and worse words';

$text=~s/$_/****/ foreach @swearwords;

print $text;

##</code><code>##

use strict;

my $swearwords= join '|', qw/bad worse ugly/;

my $text='This is a bad sentence with some ugly and worse words';

$text=~s/$swearwords/****/g ;

print $text;