Edit: Ignore me please... I need to read the problem completely before whipping out code that doesn't work.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my $string = "This is just and example text string to test our regex. 
+Please ignore it.";
my $wordpadding = 2;
my $searchword = "test";
$string =~ /((\w+\W+?){$wordpadding}$searchword(\W+?\w+){$wordpadding}
+)/;
print $1;
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jdporter unconsidered. Considered by wolfger: "please delete. I hit send before fully reading/understanding the problem." Final tally: 8 keep, 11 reap.