As its been said, your regex matches 1,100 CHARACTERS, not words(also, I believe the $ should be escaped, since its in a double-quoted string). If you wish to limit it to 1,100 words you have a problem--defining what constitutes a word. Once done, you have several options--and depending on what constitutes a word for your purposes, a regex isn't always the fastest way. Post again (including your def. of a word) if you want to limit it to 1,100 words, and you can get some help with that, otherwise solutions have already been offered as per 1,100 characters.