*Having made a rather weak pun on "Dead or Alive, Saucepan feels the need to atone by attempting to say something vaguely intelligent*
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I think Tolkien would have been fully aware of the meaning of the word he was using ...
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Quite right. He would no doubt have had regard to the derivation of the word: "necro" meaning death and "mancy" meaning divination. As has already been noted, the proper definition of the word is the use of communication with the dead to predict the future. It has since come to have mean simply sorcery connected with the raising of the dead. In fantasy RPGs and wargames, for example, a necromancer is a wizard who is able to raise the dead and command them so as to further his own ends.
It seems clear to me that JRRT's use of the term is intended to suggest that Sauron's magic was connected with death. Taking the word in its purist sense (which one would normally expect JRRT to do), it would suggest that Sauron was adept at communicating with the dead in order to divine the future. That, however, does not sit easy with me, since I see Sauron as having been more concerned about what was happening in the (ie his) present rather than the future. I think therefore that (surprisingly) JRRT was using the word in its looser sense, simply to convey that Sauron's powers were linked with death and the ability to command the spirits of the dead.
The Nazgul were certainly not living creatures. As Wraiths , one might regard them as dead, or perhaps more accurately undead creatures, ie creatures without life but animated by the dead spirits of the Men that they once were. Sauron was able to use the Nine Rings to bring them to this state and bind their dead (or undead) spirits to his will.
Another example is Sauron's association with Morgoth's Vampires. The Vampire Thuringwethil was the chief messenger between Morgoth in Angband and Sauron when he ruled over Tol-in-Gauroth, and Sauron himself took Vampire shape to flee when that stronghold fell. I may be wrong, but I don't think that it is ever explained exactly what the Vampires were. Possibly they were minor Maia, like the Balrogs. But they might also have been undead creatures in the classic Vampire sense - dead souls animated by Morgoth and bent to his will. And possibly also, Sauron learned this ability to work with the spirits of the dead, ie necromancy, from his Master, the original Dark Lord.