Plain TeX is Donald E. Knuth's foundational collection of TeX macros, parameters and conventions, described in The TeXbook by Donald E. Knuth. It makes a usable document interface from the lower-level facilities of TeX.[ref]
For example, $x^2+1$\bye requests an inline mathematical expression and ends the document. The \bye macro handles paragraph completion and final output before ending the run.[ref] The example uses the format's existing definitions together with TeX primitives and mathematical typesetting rules.
Plain TeX is useful when studying how relatively small definitions control layout. LaTeX provides a different TeX format with more document-level structure. Choosing a format determines which definitions an input file can expect to find already loaded.

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