Meyer-Lübke, a nephew of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer,[1] was born in Dübendorf, Switzerland.

He studied Indo-European philology at Zürich (with Heinrich Schweizer-Sidler) and at Berlin (with Johannes Schmidt).

He obtained his PhD in Romance philology with a dissertation on Die Schicksale des lateinischen Neutrums im Romanischen (1883).

[2][3] While lecturing at Zürich in 1887, he was appointed associate professor of comparative linguistics at Jena.

From there he was called in 1890 to Vienna, where he was from 1892 to 1915 professor of Romance philology, as well as serving as dean and rector (1906/07).