Learn Farsi: مرد زاهد در یک غار خالی خالی زندگی می‌کرد. - The pious man lived in a totally empty cave.

It comes from the Arabic root z-h-d, which relates to abstaining from worldly pleasures. The Fâ'el pattern (C1-â-C2-e-C3) turns roots into the 'doer' of an action or state, so زاهد literally means 'an ascetic' or 'a pious person.' While it frequently functions as a standalone noun, here it is used as an adjective describing مرد (man).

Why is the adjective خالی (khâli) repeated in this sentence?

Repeating an adjective is a common stylistic device in Farsi called reduplication, which is used to intensify the meaning. While a single خالی just means 'empty,' doubling it to خالی خالی emphasizes that the cave was 'totally empty' or 'completely bare.'

Why does the sentence use the past continuous verb زندگی می‌کرد when the English translation uses the simple past 'lived'?

In Farsi, past states of being (such as living somewhere, knowing someone, or having something) are viewed as ongoing background actions rather than completed single events. Because of this, they require the imperfective prefix می. A common trap for English speakers is trying to translate simple past states directly into the Farsi simple past, which sounds unnatural.