  The concept of proximate order is widely used in the theories of entire,
meromorphic, subharmonic and plurisubharmonic functions. We give a general
interpretation of this concept as a proximate growth function relative to a
model growth function. If a function is the proximate growth function with
respect to the identity function on the positive semi-axis, then the logarithm
of this function is the classical proximate order. Our definition uses only one
condition. This form of definition is also new for the classical proximate
order.
