But it DOES work. If $word contains "absorb" in it at all $1 will be set to absorb, after the match.

One thing of note is that $1 will never match absorbs nor absorbed, as as it will match absorb first, the regex engine will consider the regex a success and stop. if on the other hand you want to match absorbed or absorbs you might want to change the order of the alternation around, so that the last thing it attempts to match is absorb. or for less backtracking you might try something like: 

$word =~ /(absorb(?:s|ed)?)/i; print $1;

[download]

updated:added the ? as per ysth below. ysth++ for catching my oversight.

-enlil

In reply to Re: quick question about parenthesis and regular expressions by Enlil
in thread quick question about parenthesis and regular expressions by cranberry13

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