While I believe that Mary was an actual virgin, I’ll add that the use of the English term “virgin” was somewhat less precise than it is today as well. For instance, Queen Elizabeth I died one year before work in the King James Bible commenced. Care to know what she was known as? The Virgin Queen, of course. Though I doubt that few considered her an actual virgin, she was known by that moniker because she never married and unmarried women of good reputation (and the Queen must have the best reputation) were considered to be virgins. If they weren’t, they were whores. So, young unmarried women were often referred to as maids or virgins without actual knowledge that they really were maids or virgins. In fact, some of them were called that when it was well known they weren’t because of social conventions.
So, at least with the King James Bible, calling Mary a virgin was literally the closest English word to the original Hebrew at that time.
