$re = '/^(?:(?!custom|onetomany|manytomany|atom|tomcat|tomorrow|automatic).(?!custom|onetomany|manytomany|atom|tomcat|tomorrow|automatic))*?(tom).*/m';
$str = 'foo bar test
another tom test
but wait, automatic
but wait, tomorrow
but wait, atom tom
automatic fail';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php