I came across the term "Socle" of a module defined for a finitely generated module $M$ over a noetherian ring $(A,\mathbb{m})$ as follows
$$\mathrm{Soc}(M) = \lbrace x \in m \mid ax = 0\ \forall a \in \mathbb{m} \rbrace.$$
This definition is same as the definition in wikipedia as the sum of simple modules of $M$. I also read that some properties of a module can be read from the socle of a module which i found interesting. Any references towards possibly the proof of statements here would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks