Higher level text searching has been around for decades. In fact lawyers use this all the time. For example:
motion w/3 (denied or deny!)
This will match any sentence with the word "motion" within three words of the word "denied" or any other word that starts with "deny" (e.g., "denying"). Often, these systems use regex underneath with fancy libraries built on top to determine word separation, sentence separation, etc.
The truth is that regex is really great for character level searching, but if you commonly do word or sentence level searching there are a variety of solutions already available.
motion w/3 (denied or deny!)
This will match any sentence with the word "motion" within three words of the word "denied" or any other word that starts with "deny" (e.g., "denying"). Often, these systems use regex underneath with fancy libraries built on top to determine word separation, sentence separation, etc.
The truth is that regex is really great for character level searching, but if you commonly do word or sentence level searching there are a variety of solutions already available.