noun
: either of the seventh pair of cranial nerves leaving the cranium on either side by the internal auditory meatus, passing through the facial canal, emerging at the stylomastoid foramen to supply motor fibers to the facial muscles and to the stylohyoid and posterior belly of the digastric, and sending a separate mixed branch to the tongue that carries the gustatory fibers from the anterior two thirds of the tongue and parasympathetic fibers to the sphenopalatine and submaxillary ganglia