Meaning

noun English mathematician and physicist; remembered for developing the calculus and for his law of gravitation and his three laws of motion (1642-1727)

noun a unit of force equal to the force that imparts an acceleration of 1 m/sec/sec to a mass of 1 kilogram; equal to 100,000 dynes

originInherited from Middle English Neweton, from Old English nēowa tūn (“new town”). Compare same construction in Italian Napoli (“Naples”) and in Arabic نَابُلُس (nābulus, “Nablus”). The unexpected Early Modern pronunciation with /ɛʊ̯/ instead of /ɪʊ̯/, as securely attested in Richard Hodges' 1644 English Primrose and confirmed by obsolete Welsh Newtwnn, is due to trisyllabic shortening in Old…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0