$re = '/\b(?:box(?:(?!es)|es)|bag(?:(?!s)|s)|bxs)\K(?=[a-zA-Z])/m';
$str = 'boxes
bags
boxesapple
boxapple
bagapple
bagsapple
unboxesapple
';
$subst = " ";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
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