petrous
\PE-truhs\
adjective
1. like stone, especially in hardness; stony; rocky.
2. Anatomy. noting or pertaining to the hard dense portion of the temporal bone, containing the internal auditory organs; petrosal.
Quotes
There was something good and soothing about standing here and feeling one with the specter of things, something wholesome in watching life from the bank of the dead, siding with the dead against the living, like standing by the river and hearing, not the Bach, but the hard, glacial, petrous cracking underneath the prelude—hard, glacial, petrous, like her, like me.
-- André Aciman, Eight White Nights, 2010
Origin
Petrous comes from the Latin word petrōsus meaning "rocky."
Dictionary.com
