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Quiet, still.
Printed above the staff or under a keyboard part as a character word, alone or beside dolcissimo or a soft dynamic, at the start of a still passage. It sets mood and lasts until the music changes character; it does not by itself change the tempo.
Quieto asks for stillness: calm, settled playing with little motion in the phrasing. It overlaps with tranquillo and calmo, stressing the absence of disturbance more than peace of mind. Like them it is a character word, not a dynamic; quiet music is usually soft, but mark the dynamic as well. It suits endings and suspended moments where the music should seem to stop and breathe.
Quieto 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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