Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Either of the seventh pair of cranial nerves that control facial muscles and relay sensation from the taste buds of the front part of the tongue.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun neuroanatomy The seventh (VII) of twelve paired
cranial nerves .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun cranial nerve that supplies facial muscles
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word facial nerve.
Examples
Sorry, no example sentences found.
biocon commented on the word facial nerve
The facial nerve is either of the 7th pair of cranial nerves emanating from the cranium on either side via the internal acoustic meatus, passing through the canal for the facial nerve, emerging at the stylomastoid foramen to supply motor fibers to the facial muscles, musculus stylohyoideus and venter posterior musculi digastrici, and sending a separate mixed (sensory and motor) branch to the tongue, which conducts the gustatory neural fibers from the anterior two thirds of the tongue and parasympathetic neural fibers to the sphenopalatine ganglion and submaxillary ganglion.
August 14, 2011