Definition of "facial nerve" []

• 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. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Thus the illustrious physiologist Müller, says,17 "The completely different expression of the features in different passions shows that, according to the kind of feeling excited, entirely different groups of the fibres of the facial nerve are acted on."