Hi all, I need some help with all things dark and black. I consulted my dictionary and had a field day. Please help me sort all this out!

1. Do I have this right?
dorcha = not lit, without light, dark, like a room at night with no light on or maybe an overcast day
dubh = black like the color
duibhe = something that feels dark emotionally (gloomy?)

2. Could duibhe ever mean dark in an evil or immoral way, or is there a better word for that?

3. What is dubhithir? Is that a specific thing like really dark soil? It says it should translate as "black earth." What is "black earth?" lol

4. What is An duibhré? Is it the same thing as An dui-ré? Does it mean a dark moon like a new moon, or the dark side of the moon, or a night that's dark because there's no moon?

5. Most importantly: how would you translate dubhealaín? I see the dubh in there but what is ealaín? I can't find it in my dictionary so I know it must have a different root word or something, or is it gibberish without the dubh on the front of it?

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I'm very much a beginner learner. Don't hesitate to correct me, as long as you explain why. This is how I learn best!

Dia dhuit a chara,
if you have a look at the Teanglann website, it's all there -

dorcha - as a noun it means darkness, obscurity and as an adjective - dark, without light.

duibhe - blackness, gloom, malevolence (variants of this word are duibheadas and duibheacht)

an duibhré - the dark of the moon, the moonless part of the night. So - oíche dhuibhré means a moonless or pitch-dark night.

dubhithir - black earth

dubhealaín (with a fada on the i) - black art, magic.
(I always thought 'black magic' meant a box of chocolates)

dubh le cleite an fhéich - black as a raven's feather (I put that in as it's probably part of a magic spell

should be either "dubh mar chleite an fhéich" (black as...) or "chomh dubh le cleite an fhéich" (as black as...)

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Ah yes, I forgot to put chomh in at the beginning there.
(By the way - in the books I'm reading at the moment that are printed in seanchló - it's comh and not chomh)

Thanks, franc. Would you believe I'd never been to that site? So great to have that as a reference. Thanks for suggesting.

I'm still baffled as to what "black earth" is.

If there's a box of chocolates out there called Black Magic I must have it. I bet it's the most fabulous dark chocolate, maybe with a truffle center...

Anybody have any idea what the "ealaín" part of dubhealaín means?
*edit* Never mind, I found it. "Art." Duh! Don't know how I couldn't find that yesterday.

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I'm very much a beginner learner. Don't hesitate to correct me, as long as you explain why. This is how I learn best!

Seo dhuit -

www.balloonmonkey.co.uk/showextragift.php?extra=5093

(don't show it to Wombat, she'll be wanting some as well )

I'm guessing that black earth would mean earth that is rich and fertile, that is suitable for being tilled or cultivated.

Oh, wait, what?! They actually are chocolates? I don't think we have those in the U.S., at least, I've never seen them in my part of the country. Niiice.

So, dubh and ealaín are both on Forvo, but dubhealaín is not. Knowing Irish, it can't be as simple as just pronouncing them together...

But I'm gonna take the leap and say in Conamara it's something like "doh AH leen." I know I've probably butchered it.

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I'm very much a beginner learner. Don't hesitate to correct me, as long as you explain why. This is how I learn best!

er … I've never heard anyone pronounce the word dubh like "doh".

Here are some good pronunciations of the word dubh from Forvo:
http://forvo.com/word/dubh/#ga

Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernozem.