Bhoot, or bhut, functions across Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi and several other South Asian languages roughly the way "ghost" functions in English, a broad umbrella term for the spirit of a dead person rather than a single, sharply defined creature. As with the Chinese gui, South Asian folk belief holds that a death handled correctly, with proper funerary rites and a peaceful passing, sends the soul onward, while a death that was violent, sudden, unmarried, in debt, or otherwise incomplete leaves a soul prone to lingering as a bhoot.
Regional and community folklore subdivides the general category extensively, with named subtypes for specific circumstances of death, gender and disposition, so that a bhoot encountered in a village is rarely described generically but rather identified as a particular kind, each carrying its own expected behaviour, danger level and remedy. Feet turned backward, a shadowless form, and the ability to change shape or voice are common identifying signs across many regional tellings, and protective practice, from iron nails at doorways to specific mantras, is correspondingly widespread and treated as ordinary household precaution rather than exceptional ritual.