 <p>If I understand you correctly you have one table with words (or more general text). This is your table $nome. Now you want to select all rows from another table table_dediche, where column dediche does not containt anything that is in the table $nome. Is this correct?</p> <p>That is not possible, if you get the values from another table. There is nothing like combining like and in with the result of a subquery. You can have a look at <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1127088/mysql-like-in">MySQL LIKE IN()?</a> where they solve that problem using an regex. Not sure if that works in your case.</p>