The word "cooee" originates from the Dharug language of Aboriginal Australians in the Sydney area. The call was used by Aboriginal people to communicate with another person at a distance. 'Coo-ee' was typically expressed as a long loud call ending on a shrill rising inflection on the 'ee'.[2] The call was later adopted by the colonial settlers and was widely used as a signal, especially in the bush.[3] It means "come here" and has now become widely used in Australia as a call over distances.[4]
COO-EE !
The expression "within cooee" has developed within Australian as slang for "within a manageable distance". It is often used in the negative sense (i.e., "you're not even within cooee", meaning not close to or, a long way off). Another example would be: "They realised they were lost and there was no-one within cooee". It is also use in the abstract (e.g., "How much do you think they spent redoing this place?" "Oh, I don't know, five thousand dollars?" "You're not even within cooee—twenty-five thousand!").
