Yes my Brother,
We know the meaning of the word, but as you already know,
People use same words for many different uses/meanings, and many times the meaning what they understand is the opposite of the truth.
Some will say: bad is good and good is bad.
For to many people, because of religious teachings, Love between man and woman was something dirty, shameful, taboo...
This is the opposite of the truth.
Love is something beautiful, wonderful, and not dirty.
For to many JW apostate is bad word, the friends will cry: " you will die at armagedon! You abandon Jehovah ! You abandon the truth ! You abandon Jesus Christ ! You abandon us, family friends !
So, to many of the milions who left out of conscience because of false teachings, this is a painful word, they are already have very low self-esteem, doubts, broken heart. The evil society has a long history of making trash out of something beautiful. Marriage and sex was painted as something shameful, selfish, dirty.
We all know why now. The only thing Right to do and glorified over and over and over was to slave more for the Borg, to pedlle more magazines of the dirty cult.
So, to label somebody apostate was the last kick to a person who was already bring to ruin by trying to practice JW cult. Everybody was avoiding this label like disease, because that is whot the Rapetower put in the minds of the JW cult members.