jooTa

I believe jooTa means "used," but I feel the way I hear it being used connotes some kind of meaning of ritual purity as well. Can someone kindly explain this? eg.Yeh doodh mat piyo, jooTa hai.

In Hindi:

jhootha झूठा - one who tells lies, or a liar

jootha जूठा - a food or an item which has been partially eaten or touched by mouth by someone else.

Both words are very different. At times people misspell "jootha" with "jhootha" (or any word with "J" as starting with "Jh") and it is wrong to do so.

You will not find this concept of "jootha" in many other cultures and this is unique to the culture of Hindus. Hindus avoid eating someone else's "jootha" making it a point of hygiene. (this concept may also be applicable to even those who are not exactly Hindus in India; because of culture impacts society and is not exactly binding on a religion alone). But in general this concept came from Hindu culture and Hinduism.

In fact there is no exact translation available for this word in many languages, because in their culture it was not considered wrong to eat from someone else's partially-taken food and hence they never had such a word.