Yes, that helped! Here's one option that substitutes the "_" with ".+" for use in a regex (use "." if you want only one letter to match):

use strict;
use warnings;

my @array1 = qw (fil_  t_xt _erl);
my @array2 = qw (Merlin file text fils perl filled);

for my $stem (@array1) {
    my $re = $stem;
    $re =~ s/_/.+/;
    /\b$re\b/ and print "$stem: $_\n" for @array2;
}
[download]

Output:

fil_: file
fil_: fils
fil_: filled
t_xt: text
_erl: perl
[download]

Only whole words are matched, as word boundires (\b) are used in the regex which, if omitted, will also match substrings within the dictionary words.

Hope this helps!

Update: Below is an updated version which adapts BrowserUk's preferred solution:

use strict;
use warnings;

my @array1 = qw (fil_  t_xt _erl);
my @array2 = qw (Merlin file text fils perl filled);

my $words = join ' ', @array2;

for my $stem (@array1) {
    my $re = $stem;
    $re =~ s/_/./;
    print "$stem: $1\n" while $words =~ /\b($re)\b/g;
}
[download]

Output:

fil_: file
fil_: fils
t_xt: text
_erl: perl
[download]

If you want the "_" to be matched by more than one letter in the dictionary words, change the substitution to $re =~ s/_/\\S+/;.

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