This paper is concerned with a class of essentially strongly order-preserving semiflows, which are defined on an ordered metric space and are generalizations of strongly order-preserving semiflows. For essentially strongly order-preserving semiflows, we prove several principles, which are analogues of the nonordering principle for limit sets, the limit set dichtomy and the sequential limit set trichotomy for strongly order-preserving semiflows. Then, under certain compactness hypotheses, we obtain some results on convergence, quasiconvergence and stability in essentially strongly order-preserving semiflows. Finally, some applications are made to quasimonotone systems of delay differential equations and reaction–diffusion equations with delay, and the main advantages of our results over the classical ones are that we do not require the delicate choice of state space and the technical ignition assumption.