According to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, grind something out: to produce something in large quantities, often something that is not good or interesting Synonym: churn out ex: She grinds out romantic novels at the rate of five a year. But I think the example you posted really means this: grind somebody down to treat somebody in a cruel unpleasant way over a long period of time, so that they become very unhappy ex: Don't let them grind you down. ex: Years of oppression had ground the people down. "clean of limb" seems to mean healthy or of good moral character, but I'm not 100% sure. I even checked in the British National Corpus and "clean of limb" is a very uncommon phrase.