Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or resembling rock, especially in hardness; stony.
  • adjective Of or relating to the very dense, hard portion of the temporal bone that forms a protective case for the inner ear.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Like stone in hardness; stony; rocky.
  • Pertaining to the part of the temporal bone so called; petrosal: as. a petrous vein or sinus; a petrous ganglion.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Like stone; hard; stony; rocky.
  • adjective (Anat.) Same as Petrosal.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Resembling rock or stone in its hardness
  • adjective Of the dense portion of the temporal bone that protects the inner ear.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective (of bone especially the temporal bone) resembling stone in hardness

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French petros, from Latin petrōsus, rocky, from petra, rock, from Greek petrā; see per- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Greek petra, rock.

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