how to do this type of search

[Nicolas Cueto]

Hello All,

A straightforward question, I think.

I have a list of 5 tab-delimited items per line. Each item can be
either a single word or a group of words separated by a "/".

Example:

abide	abode/abided	abode/abided/abidden	abides	abiding
alight	alit/alighted	alit/alighted	alights	alighting
arise	arose	arisen	arises	arising
awake	awoke	awoken	awakes	awaking
be	was/were	been	is	being

What I want my script to do is find which line contains an exact match
to a given item.

For example:

--  "is", on line 5
-- "alighted", on line 2

All I can think of is to use brute force and go thru the list item by item.

Maybe with "wholematches" or such, there's some faster way?

Thank you.
--
Nicolas Cueto