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Less fast.
Printed above the staff at the bar where the tempo eases, usually as an immediate change, and in force until the next tempo word. Graded: un peu moins vite. In songs it may appear in the voice while the piano carries a different direction in the same bar.
The French meno mosso, measured against the tempo before it. It differs from plus lent in emphasis: moins vite keeps a quick piece quick while taking the edge off, plus lent turns toward a slow character. Bizet uses it inside quick songs (“Le grillon”, “Tarentelle”) to give a phrase more space. Mark the return (Tempo I, au Mouvt) so the easing does not last longer than you intend.
Bizet, Feuilles d’album, “Le grillon”, voice, m. 210: “moins vite”, at p after a dim., in a song headed “Allegro scherzando.”
Moins vite is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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