In this chapter I will pull together the conceptual threads of the historical development. The review of the terminological variants shows that the concept of the virtual particle did not need the backdrop of a stable terminology in and for its development. The tabularic and diagrammatic representations are striking proof of the conceptual shifts discussed in the historical development. I will use the analytical category of a “false prediction” to pinpoint some of the conceptual differences between quantum electrodynamics in the 1930s and the late 1940s, which are strongly interrelated with the difference between virtual transitions and virtual particles. Finally, I will concisely revisit the historical development and argue that the concepts which can be connected to the historical trajectory of the virtual particle shared an important function, namely as the bridging elements in the theoretical description. And, as my argument goes, all of these concepts performed this function by extending the set of possible processes and by making this extended set of possibilities active physical entities.