In Word wildcard terms, your #3 has three OR arguments. This [ा-ौ] is an OR argument. So is this [ॢॣ] and this [ँंः]. Word does not use the RegEx '|' for an OR separator. If you want to be able to search for any of those terms using a wildcard Find in Word, you would need to use [ा-ौॢॣँंः].

Your #1 and #2 represent RegEx OR expressions but they are not Word wildcard expressions. If you want to use true regular expressions, then use RegEx, not Word wildcards. As advised in post #6, you can use RegEx in Word just the same as in Excel.

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]