cooee

within cooee of (something)

Very close to something, either literally or figuratively. "Cooee" is an Aboriginal word. Primarily heard in Australia, New Zealand. There's a store within cooee of the house, so I can easily go and get more milk. The team came within cooee of the championship title, but lost the match in the final moments.
See also: cooee, of, within
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

within cooee of

within reach of; near to.
Cooee originated as an Aboriginal word used as a shout to attract attention, and was adopted by European settlers in Australia. The literal meaning of the phrase within cooee of is ‘within hailing distance of’.
See also: cooee, of, within
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

within ˈcooee (of)

(AustralE, New Zealand) not far (from): There’s loads of cheap accommodation within cooee of the airport. (figurative) The government is not within cooee of reaching the growth targets.
Cooee is a noise a person makes as a way of attracting somebody’s attention.
See also: cooee, within
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • lead the pack
  • chase away
  • draw near to
  • literally
  • hang by the eyelids
  • die from (something)
  • detach
  • detach (someone or something) from (someone or something)
  • detach from
  • detached
References in periodicals archive
Cooee Design Small Pillar Vase | Available in cinder rose and ochre, PS40
I NEVER never ever want to leave this place, We're in Persia with blessings falling from the trees Like beautiful magic custard onto my face, A friendly goat called Marrak is licking my knees, And suddenly we're in the Outer Hebrides, A lovely Gallic handmaiden is handing me A plate of crackers and a thousand kinds of cheese, But now a distant phoenix starts to call, "Cooee!" It settles into a rhythm, "Bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep", I think, "That bird sounds just like my bedside alarm", Then comes a slow and sad awareness: we're asleep, We go for one final flit around Notre Dame, At last I manage to open one eye somehow, I waggle a toe, this will have to do for now.
Just three years later in 1859 John Lang published his story 'The Ghost Upon the Rail', which tells of an undead visitor who appears, appropriately enough, in the middle of the night, but in 'an Australian winter's night--in the middle of July.'14 Australian colonial Gothic is in clear dialogue with the classic Gothic traditions of Europe and America, but Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver point out that it 'quickly developed a set of distinctive local characteristics.'15 In lieu of ancient European ruins, the isolated homestead, the bush, the watering-hole, the eerie 'cooee' echoing through the deserted landscape, and sacred Aboriginal burial grounds are all specifically Australian ways of expressing the Gothic imaginary.
As part of the Denmark CO2 Energy Efficiency (COOEE) project, Danish Road Directorate officials have enlisted Austin, Texas-based mainline and precast concrete pavement specialist Transtec Group to identify measures of decreasing vehicles' resistance to motion or rolling resistance.
Sharp, N., 2007, 'Climate change: within Cooee of the 2050 generation: the seriousness of climate change has become unavoidable', Arena Magazine, no.
The offending cancer cells may be confined to my pelvic area or, after waiting a while to get my hopes up (cancer's like that), suddenly pop up somewhere else and shout, "Cooee! Over here!" I'm thinking of asking Sporting Index for a quote on life expectancy.
This character type appeared in a number of Australian films dating back to 1907, Robbery Under Arms (1907), Captain Starlight (1910), Thunderbolt ((1910), The Assigned Servant (1911), The Squatter's Son (1911), Assigned to his Wife(1911), Cooee and the Echo (1912), The Bondage of the Bush (1913), Robbery Under Arms (1920) and The Gentleman Bushranger (1921).
I do actually have a couple of people who don't knock when they come in, I have been upstairs when I have heard 'cooee'.
The cooee whistle cracked through the dawn like a baton slammed into a body.
(There won't be a 'plum' within cooee but there will be thousands of things.) Your darling little parcel is going holus bolus (when I've squashed it all in indiscriminately with a rail bolt) into the pudding--which won't be boiled, as the ground work is Weeties or Crispies, and there will be condensed milk and mix and stewed peaches and boiled currants and pennies wrapped in paper for the nice children (some whose mothers were wee children in those years), and I have a great big wide two gallon tin dish; and cooked apples will be squashed up, and the top (when stiffened by heat or resting) will have a lovely topping of condensed milk (sweetened) and I must have it stiff enough to slice it into as many slices as there are guests....
In reality, however, he had come within 'cooee' of his goal.
He believed that the boy, upon hearing his mother cooee, had attempted to turn the grazing mare back, which it would not do being so close to home.
And you should definitely put the city library on your itinerary if you are ever fortunate enough to be within cooee of Malmo.
Hovering within cooee of this statement was the nation's battalion of brave, bronzed guardian angels, the mythical and legendary Anzac spirits who had been invoked ten months earlier at the New South Wales state funeral for Ted Matthews.
In the eighth population (Cooee, Tasmania), there were only enough larvae for 20 vials (five replicates per temperature treatment).