Simple Negative Lookahead
import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Main { public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception { String regex = "test (?!Test)[A-Z]\\w+"; Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex); String candidate = "this is a test "; Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(candidate); String tmp = null; while (matcher.find()) { tmp = matcher.group(); System.out.println("MATCH:" + tmp); } } }