$re = '/(?=.*\b(?:one|two|three|four|five|six|seven|eight|nine)\b)(\b(?:one|two|three)(?:\s+(?:one|two|three))*\b)?.+?(\b(?:four|five|six)(?:\s+(?:four|five|six))*\b)?.+?(\b(?:seven|eight|nine)(?:\s+(?:seven|eight|nine))*\b)?/m';
$str = 'one two three four five six seven eight nine
two three four
';
preg_match_all($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