foreach my $word (@words) {
    my $sth = $dbh->prepare(
        "SELECT * FROM  my_table
         WHERE 
           description LIKE '?' 
        OR shortdescription LIKE '?' 
        OR name LIKE '?'"
      ) || die "Error: " . $dbh->errstr;

    #append and prepend percentage signs
    $word ="%".$word."%" ;

    $sth->execute($word,$word,$word) || die "Error: " . $dbh->errstr;
 # do some stuff
}