It's been that way since at least 5.8.9. ("t" means threaded. Ignore that.) 

$ for v in 5.8.9 5.10t 5.12t 5.14t 5.16t 5.18t 5.20t; do
   echo $v
   $v/bin/perl -le'print ref( qr/x/ )'
done
5.8.9
Regexp
5.10t
Regexp
5.12t
Regexp
5.14t
Regexp
5.16t
Regexp
5.18t
Regexp
5.20t
Regexp

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In reply to Re^2: Perl named operators and builtin subs introduced since 5.6 by ikegami
in thread Finding when a feature or keyword was introduced by Bod

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