Scratch registers:

All the formats currently treated allow the use of the following plain TEX ??w![scratch register conventions] ( [#!K84:TeXbook!#, p.346])

with the constraint that ??c![] should never (always) be used when assigning to number 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 255 (1, 3, 5, 7, and 9).