Are there any words in the English language that use all five vowels?

It is not an animal, but an official edict or decree from a pope. The term comes from the Latin bulla (a knob or seal). It originally referred to the seal that was placed on the pope’s official documents.

No, the word shyster did not come from Shakespeare’s Shy-lock. It came from a Mr. Scheuster, an unscrupulous American criminal lawyer in the 1840s.

A fortnight is fourteen days.

The phrase “to 86” generally means “put an end to”. It is said to have been part of a number code used in diners and soda fountains. In those early days, 86 meant “we’re out of that dish,” “don’t serve that customer,” or “don’t serve another drink to that customer because he’s already had too…

The male side of a family is called the Spear side. A distaff was a stick with a cleft end, used to hold the flax or wool from which a woman spun thread. The distaff was considered a woman’s tool, while the spear was a man’s. Both ways of describing genealogy are now rarely used.

At one time there was no difference between a Preface and a Foreword. Preface was the Latinate term, foreword the Anglo-Saxon one, for a brief opening comment about a book’s purpose. Now, many consider an author’s introductory comment to be the preface, and anyone else’s comment to be the foreword.