#! perl -slw use strict; my @w = do{ local @ARGV = 'words.txt'; <> }; chomp @w; my $s = 'couldsomeonerecommendaworkingperlmoduletosplitconcatenatedwords'; my @subset = grep{ $s =~ /$_/ } 'a', 'perl', @w; my $re1 = join '|', sort{ length( $b ) <=> length( $a ) }@subset; my $re2 = "($re1)?" x 11; print for grep defined(), $s =~ /^$re2$/;